


The House by the Sea

by Nightfoot



Category: Tales of Vesperia
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Horror, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-22 07:02:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 54,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2498900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightfoot/pseuds/Nightfoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yuri and Estelle take Flynn on a relaxing vacation for his birthday. It soon turns out that their vacation home has secrets of its own, and their goal changes from taking a peaceful break to getting out alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween!
> 
> I wrote this story to celebrate the spooky season. It will update every day until Halloween.

Flynn wouldn't be coming into work today. At least, that was the message a servant delivered to Sodia's office this morning.

"Why?" she asked the young man who'd handed her the note.

"I don't know, ma'am. I delivered breakfast to his room this morning as usual, and he asked me to bring this note to you."

Sodia stared at the scrap of paper in her hand. It was definitely in Flynn's careful printing, but offered no explanation or assurance he'd be there tomorrow. Of course he deserved - and needed - a break at least once in a while, but he'd gotten back from his vacation last night and she had assumed he'd be eager to get back to work and catch up on what he missed. "Is the commandant ill?"

The servant shrugged. "Possibly. He didn't look very well when I spoke to him."

"I see…. Thank you for the message."

"My pleasure, ma'am." He bowed curtly and then left her office.

Sodia eyed the note again with growing concern. She had known Flynn to show up to work with the flu, and nearly had to forcibly drag him back to his chambers to rest. If Flynn was extending his vacation, it must be serious. She worried he'd picked up some virulent bug while away. Whatever the case, she knew she wouldn't be able to focus today as long as she wondered. She'd just take a quick trip to his quarters and make sure he was all right.

Her heels clicked quickly on the smooth floor as she hurried to his rooms. As much as she told herself she was overreacting and Flynn was probably just exhausted from the long trip home, she couldn't shake her fears. For Flynn to miss work, he must be at death's door. Her fears didn't go away when she knocked on his door and received no answer. Was he bedridden with illness? Surely the servant would have mentioned that, but perhaps he was truly incompetent. After a second knock received no answer, she opened the door and strode in.

Part of her expected to find him lying dead on the floor in the sitting room, but the room was empty. She was about to call out when the bathroom door opened and Flynn emerged. He froze in the doorway with startled eyes, water dripping from his hair and wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. Sodia gasped and turned away, flushing.

"Sir! I - I apologize for the intrusion. I should have waited for you to answer the door. I received your note and was worried. I feared you might be ill."

"It's fine."

He didn't sound mad, but he didn't sound amiable either. It wasn't that he sounded angry, but there was a heaviness behind his words that made him sound exceptionally tired. Sodia didn't spend too long thinking about that, though, because her mind was caught on what she'd seen: angry red marks scattered over his torso, the tell-tale signs of recently healed wounds.

While Flynn went to his room to change, her mind raced to explain the injuries. Had they been attacked on the return journey? They'd only gone to Capua Nor, but there were still monsters along the roads. The marks didn't look like they'd been inflicted by claws, though. She knew stab wounds when she saw them, and she shuddered to think who might have attacked him. Bandits on the road, maybe. She hadn't seen Lady Estellise yet, but she'd been told the princess returned to the castle safely last night and no one had mentioned their carriage had been attacked, so what…?

The bedroom door opened again and Flynn returned, dressed now. He wore a loose black shirt and casual pants; clearly he didn't intend to go into work today. Sodia didn't blame him as she watched him lower himself stiffly onto the sofa with a sigh and massage his shoulder. He watched her, waiting for her to speak first. She didn't know what to say, though, because she was still reeling from accidentally walking in on her commanding officer wearing nothing but a towel.

"You can sit down, if you'd like," Flynn said.

She jumped to follow his suggestion and sat in an armchair across from his couch. Sodia sat on the edge of the seat, hands folded in her lap and feet close together. "I really am sorry for barging in, sir. It was unprofessional of me."

"Don't worry about. I should have provided more detail in my note so you wouldn't worry."

She wanted to press him for said detail, but if he didn't want to share, she shouldn't ask. Luckily, Flynn saw the question on her face and supplied an answer without prompt.

"As I'm sure you noticed, I'm recovering from some serious injuries. Lady Estellise insisted I take the day off to rest. Considering how exhausted I am, I thought that sounded like a good idea."

Sodia nodded, noticing now how tired he was. His face was pallid with dark shadows under his eyes. It was hard to tell if he looked so tired simply from a lack of sleep, or if events had happened that drained him mentally. Considering Lady Estellise and Yuri Lowell had taken him on vacation in part to give him a relaxing break from work and catch up on sleep, something must have happened to disturb that.

"Sir, who were you attacked by? Would you like me to file the report for you?"

He shook his head. "No, I don't want to file any report. In fact, I'd like you to please not mention my wounds to anyone else."

She frowned in confusion. "I don't understand, sir. You're clearly still in pain - go to the infirmary and let the doctor know you were injured and he can give you more gels. You know the Council will ask questions if you take too many days off without an official medical excuse."

"I am aware. However, if I log an official report I would have to explain precisely how I was injured, and for various reasons I would prefer not to."

The more Sodia learned, the more her confusion and concern grew. Just what had happened on this vacation? "Are Lady Estellise and Yuri all right?"

"Lady Estellise is... uninjured. And Yuri…" The shadows under his eyes grew as he lowered his head. "It's a long story."

Sodia swallowed heavily. 'Uninjured' wasn't the same as 'perfectly fine'. Something major had happened on this trip, and it was clearly still haunting Flynn. "Sir, what happened? If you feel comfortable telling me, perhaps I can help you, or at least deflect questions from others."

Flynn nodded slowly. "If you really want to know, I can tell you. I will warn you that parts of the story may seem unbelievable, but please give me the benefit of the doubt."

"Yes, sir… I'll believe anything you say." What in the world had happened? Fearing the worst, Sodia settled into the chair to listen to his story.


	2. When Hinges Creak

A week earlier, Flynn was just finishing a report before heading to lunch. He was feeling good; tomorrow was his day off and he had all of his work done on time. He'd be able to relax tomorrow without worrying about it, and maybe celebrate his birthday a few days early, since he would be busy on the actual day. He placed the report in his out box and stood to head for lunch.

When he opened the door, he found Sodia on the other side, reaching for the knob. "Oh! Hello, sir."

"Good afternoon. Did you need me?" He silently hoped she didn't. It was so rare he got uninterrupted lunch breaks.

"Yes, sir. There's a situation by the training grounds that needs your presence."

He held in a sigh. "Very well. Lead the way."

Sodia walked quickly, her arms stiff and her face stern. He could tell she was nervous about something, and asked, "What exactly is the situation?"

"I'll brief you when we arrive, sir."

Curious. His mind filled with possible disasters, trying to find the right balance that it wasn't severe enough to have the whole castle in an uproar, but important enough to require his presence. He didn't come up with anything in particular, but when he arrived at the training grounds, it still wasn't what he expected. Chiefly this was because he saw nothing out of the ordinary.

"Did the problem get cleared up?"

"Not yet, sir. Follow me, please." She led him through the hall and toward the door that led to the street. A pair of knights approached, but still no commotion to be seen.

"Sodia, I don't mean to doubt your judgement, but is this really something that needs my personal involvement?"

The knights passed them, and then one of them threw a bag over his head and the other grabbed his arms, twisting them behind his back.

"Hey!"

"Quick, get the door!" one of them said as he was shoved forward.

Someone opened the door, and since both knights were occupied with pinning his arms behind his back and forcing him forward, he had to assume it was Sodia. What the hell was going on?! Sodia would never betray him like this, but she wasn't making a single move to help him. Flynn stumbled out the door and nearly tripped down the steps, but the knight holding him kept him from falling.

"Let go of me! What is the meaning of this!?" He heard a horse and then another door opening. Furious, he kicked his abductor's shins but his feet just clanked against metal. "Sodia! Dammit, Sodia, help me!"

Another set of hands grabbed him from the front and he was yanked off the ground and pulled into a carriage. "Unhand me!" he bellowed, praying someone on the street would notice that he was getting kidnapped. His heart pounded with both confusion and fear; where were they taking him and could Sodia really be in on this? The knights finally released his arms, just in time to slam the carriage door shut. His fists flew out and landed squarely in a man's stomach with a satisfying thump.

His captor grunted, and then a familiar voice said, "Aw, geeze, Flynn, that hurt."

He froze, certain he'd misheard. The carriage started moving and he wobbled, falling into a padded seat. Then he whipped the bag off his head and got a good look at his kidnappers. "Yuri? What the hell?"

"Yo." Yuri massaged his stomach and leaned against the wall across from him.

To his right, Estelle gave a little wave. "Hi."

Flynn leaned out the window and looked back, to see Sodia and his knights waving goodbye from the side entrance. He turned to his friends in confusion. "What's going on?"

"We're going on vacation," Estelle said. "But we knew you would never agree to go. Every time I suggest we go somewhere, you find some excuse."

"They're not excuses." He was still a bit shaken from thinking he was being kidnapped, and more than a little annoyed with his friends for scaring him like that. "They are legitimate reasons. For example, I have a lot of work to do next week. I can't afford a vacation, so we're going to need to turn around."

"No can do," Yuri said. "You haven't taken a proper vacation in years. Next week is your twenty-fifth birthday, and Estelle and I are going to force you to celebrate whether you want to or not."

"Sodia is taking care of all the arrangements while you're gone," Estelle said. "She knows exactly where you'll be in case of emergency, and she's prepared to deal with your workload until you get back next week."

"I see. So all my friends were plotting against me."

Yuri smiled. "Now you're getting it."

"You didn't need to abduct me."

"Ha. You would have found a way to wriggle out of going if we gave you a choice."

"I'm sorry, Flynn," Estelle said. "It was Yuri's idea."

Flynn leaned against the wall, watching buildings roll past. "I'm not the least bit surprised to hear that. So, not that I would have any say if I disagree, where are we going?"

"Capua Nor," Estelle supplied. "Actually, just outside the city. We're renting a cottage by the sea for a week. I've already made all the arrangements, and Sodia helped me pack your trunk this morning while you were at work."

"Fantastic." He'd been wondering where she was all morning. Apparently the answer was: in his bedroom preparing him for a vacation he didn't consent to. "Is it just going to be us?"

Yuri nodded. "Yeah. We're stopping in Halure on the way to say hello to Rita, but she's too busy to join us. Repede is staying in Dahngrest with Judy and Karol to run some missions."

"Don't you need to be there?"

"Nah. They can handle it. Besides," he smirked, "nothing could possibly be more important than making sure my best friend celebrates his birthday properly."

Flynn sighed and tried to make himself more comfortable for the long trip ahead.

* * *

Estelle did feel a little regret for dragging Flynn off like this, but she knew he'd have a good time once they got there. He loosened up within an hour out of Zaphias, and they spent most of the trip catching up with Yuri's adventures in Tolbyccia and regaling Estelle with increasingly embarrassing tales from the boys' childhood. They stopped for the night in Halure to visit with Rita, and then set out again to reach Capua Nor in the late afternoon.

"We're here!" Estelle cheered, jumping out of the carriage and onto the street.

"Too late to back out now, Flynn," Yuri said, following her.

"Oh well. To be honest, I'm starting to look forward to it. You're right, a vacation would be nice."

"See, I told you it was a good idea to kidnap him," Yuri said to Estelle.

She still wasn't entirely sure, but her excitement at arriving drove it away. "Thank you for driving us," she said to the coachman. "I need to pick up the house keys, so please wait here for a few minutes."

"Sure thing, Your Highness."

They were on a bright street in a residential area, with a view of the sea at the end of the road. Estelle took a deep breath, letting the salty air fill her lungs. There was no better way to relax than a vacation by the sea. Flynn was already smiling as he gazed down the street at the glittering ocean, and even though they may have been mean about taking him so abruptly, she was sure bringing him here would be good in the long run.

She knocked on the door of the address she'd been given, and a middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair opened it. "Good afternoon. Princess Estellise, correct?"

"That's right. We're not late, are we?"

"Not at all, please come in."

Flynn and Yuri accompanied her into his sitting room, and he motioned to the sofa while he went to another room. The sitting room had a huge bay window that filled it with light. It was sparsely decorated and the fabric of the sofa and chairs was worn, but the man kept it tidy.

"Who exactly is this man?" Flynn asked, sitting between the other two.

"His name is Mr. Yates, and he owns the house we're staying at," Estelle explained. "I found him through an advertisement in the newspaper. Don't worry, I had the Knights do a background check and everything is fine."

"I wasn't aware my knights did any such thing."

Estelle smiled sweetly. "Well, no, because the commandant doesn't need to sign off on every minor activity and Sodia made sure the paperwork for it never reached your desk."

Flynn sighed, more amused than annoyed. "I never knew my friends could coordinate such an effort to keep me out of the loop."

Yuri leaned back on the sofa, folding his arms and stretched his legs. "It wouldn't be much of a surprise birthday present if you knew about it in advance."

Mr. Yates returned with a paper and a ring of keys. "Sign this, please," he said as he sat in an armchair across from them and slid the paper across the coffee table.

Estelle glanced over the contract, which was a simple lease agreement. "You already received my payment, correct?"

Yates nodded. "Aye, the payment came from the castle a few days ago. Everything is in order."

Estelle carefully read the terms and conditions before signing, just in case. As she read, Flynn asked, "So, where exactly is this house?"

"About ten minutes out of town by carriage ride," Yates explained. "You would have passed the lane leading up to it on your way here. It's on the north shore of the peninsula, at the top of the cliffs."

"Excuse me," Estelle looked up from the paper, "what does it mean where it says you aren't responsible for any injury that may result while on the property? The house isn't dangerous, is it?"

"That's just because there's a staircase leading down to the beach. It hasn't been maintained for a few years, so it might be dangerous if you don't watch your step."

"Oh, ok." She went back to reading.

"Did you used to live there, Mr. Yates?" Flynn asked.

"Me? No, no." He shook his head. "It used to belong to a family. They disappeared during the Adephagos, and the city auctioned it off. I was going to move up there with my family, but wouldn't you know it? My wife left me for some cocksure guildsman a week later." He shrugged. "What can you do? I let it sit for a while, not sure what to do with it, and recently decided to fix the place up and rent it out. You'll be the first tenants, so I can guarantee everything is still good as new."

Yuri straightened up. "What do you mean, 'disappeared'? What happened to the family?"

"No one really knows." He held up his hands in a shrug. "It was a confusing time. Lots of people up and left, hoping the weird crap in the sky was a local phenomenon. The man of the house - Bram Caverly was his name - was a retired sailor. He'd settled down after his kid was born and dealt with shipping, if I recall, but I used to see him in the pub talking starry-eyed with the young lads heading off to sea. If you ask me, he took one look at that mess in the sky and considered it the final straw to take his family and set off to sea once more, hoping to find a safe harbour across the ocean."

"They didn't come back when the Adephagos was eliminated, though," Flynn said.

"Aye, that's true, but sea journeys are long and tiresome, especially with a young kid. I'd bet my left ear they settled down over in Mantaic or what have you and see no reason to come back. Either way, worked out well for me!"

Estelle reached the end of the contract and, finding it all in order, signed her name. "Here you go, Mr. Yates. We promise to take good care of your house."

"Thank you very much, my dear. These are for you." He passed her the keys. "One is for the front door and the other is for the back. Don't feel pressured to keep the doors locked, though. There's nothing much up there, so monsters never come close and hardly anyone passes by. The cupboards are stocked with food and I got a generator set up for electricity."

"Electricity?" Flynn said. "I wouldn't have expected it in such an isolated place."

Yates grinned. "Well, I do like to go the extra mile, especially for such prestigious tenants."

"Thank you very much," Estelle said. The promise of electricity was one of the things that made her pick this place to begin with. Electric lighting had become common in the wealthier areas of major cities in the past few years, while most secluded or lower-class homes still made do with gas lamps after blastia power disappeared.

"There's a generator on site to keep your lights running, and hot water, too. I've completely renovated the bedrooms, so don't worry about one of them still looking like a little kid's room.

"Sounds good," Yuri said, standing up. "Anything else we need to know?"

Yates shook his head. "Nope. Have a nice vacation."

They thanked him once again and then returned to the carriage.

As Yates said, it took a little over ten minutes for their carriage to make its way up the hill out of town. When Capua Nor was a cluster of buildings in the distance, they turned off the main road and trundled along a lane that was little more than a pair of worn wheel tracks. The carriage jostled them about, but in no time at all it stopped and they hopped down to the grass.

The cottage was just as cute as the advertisement described. The two-storey house was covered in pale blue siding with white trim, and surrounded by short, browning grass that crinkled under their feet. Behind the house, the cliff extended into a rocky point, and waves beat against the side of the cliff from far below.

The coachman began pulling their luggage from the back of the carriage, and Flynn and Yuri were quick to run to his aid. Certainly Yuri would never stand for letting a servant carry his things, and his luggage was the lightest in the first place. He tossed his bag over his shoulder and gave the coachman a hard look, just daring him to try to take it.

Estelle smiled at them, and then walked up the steps to the front porch. A pair of wicker chairs sat to the side, and it was roofed by an outcropping of the second story. The door opened easily, letting them into a dark foyer. Her heels clicked on the wooden floors as her hand ran against the wallpaper in search of a light switch. Finally her fingers found a little wooden panel with a round metal switch. She flicked it on and bright light filled the room. The light came from a chandelier hanging from the ceiling, but it was obvious the chandelier was now just for show. It had empty sockets where blastia lighting used to be, and a bare bulb was crudely attached to the middle with wires still visible.

"Which way do I take the luggage, ma'am?"

"Upstairs." She pointed to the stairs to her left. She wasn't actually sure since she didn't know the layout of the house, but she guessed that was where the bedrooms were. She led the way up the L-shaped steps to the second floor landing. The others came more slowly, navigating the turn in the stairs with bulky trunks, so Estelle ran ahead to figure out which bedroom was which.

The first one she found at the front of the house was the master bedroom, with a huge window overlooking the lane. "Flynn, you take this one."

"Why?" He reached the top of the stairs and let his trunk thump on the landing.

"It's the master bedroom and you should take it."

"Oh, no, I couldn't. You take it, Lady Estellise."

"Don't be silly. This trip is your birthday present, so you get the big room. I insist." She crossed her arms and set her jaw, daring Flynn to defy her.

As expected, he smiled slightly and shook his head. "As you wish."

Estelle tried the next door and found an office, but the one after that was a bedroom with soft green walls and a floral rug in the middle of the wooden floors. "I'll take this one. You can put my things in the closet here, please."

"I'll sleep in here, then." Yuri swung open the next door. He paused in the doorway when he was confronted by a bathroom. "Uh… maybe not."

Estelle giggled. "I'm sure you'd be very comfortable in the bathtub, Yuri."

He moved to the next door. "This one had better have a bed." The door swung open and revealed a small bedroom with dark blue walls and a double bed near the back window. "Much better." He tossed his bag on the bed and then leaned against the doorway. "We all settled, then?"

"I think that's everything." Estelle turned to the coachman, who closed her bedroom door as he walked out. "Thank you very much. You can come back and pick us up next week."

He doffed his cap and nodded. "Will do, ma'am. Have a nice time."

As soon as he left, Estelle ran past Yuri to the window in the back corner. Even after seeing so much of the world on their journey several years ago, she still adored the sight of the sea. They'd explored all the land across Terca Lumereis, but the ocean still held many mysteries. Seagulls kited through the air and even from inside she could hear the rush of waves.

"It's certainly a nice view," Flynn said, standing behind her now.

"Isn't it? This house is simply adorable."

"Geeze, Estelle, I haven't seen you this cheerful in ages," Yuri said. "You look like it's your birthday we're celebrating."

Her smile widened further and she looked away from the window. "Why wouldn't I be happy? I've got a lovely house and an amazing view and a week to share it with my boys."

Flynn frowned. "Your 'boys'?"

He looked like he wanted to protest further, but then Yuri said, "I'll pay you back, by the way."

"What for?" she asked.

"My half of the rent. This is a joint present for Flynn, so I'll pay half as soon as I have the money."

"Don't worry about it. Your presence is enough."

"No way, I can't let you pay for my share. I don't have the gald at the moment but I will as soon as we run a few more missions."

Yuri was never going to let up on this, but Estelle would do whatever she could to make sure he never gave her any of his hard-earned money. He needed it far more than she did. "If you insist."

"What are we doing wasting time inside?" Yuri said. "I heard there's a beach. Let's go check it out."

"Can we eat first?" Flynn asked. "I'm getting hungry."

"Oh, I have an idea!" Estelle started toward the door. "Let's make sandwiches and take them down to the beach for a picnic!"

Flynn and Yuri followed her back downstairs to the foyer. She ignored the white-painted double-doors to the front sitting room to her right and walked through the archway across from the front door. This led into a huge room, with a kitchen to the left and a living room to the right. The walls were covered in pale blue wallpaper with a pattern of ships around the top, and soft rugs under the chairs and sofa on the side with the fireplace kept sound from resonating off the hardwood floors. She hadn't turned the lights on yet, but there were so many windows they weren't needed.

"Alright, Estelle!" Yuri sprang behind Flynn and wrapped his arms around his chest. "Quick! I'll hold Flynn away from the kitchen if you get the sandwiches ready!"

"Hey!" Flynn easily shook Yuri off and then shoved him into a wall. "I can handle making a sandwich, thank you very much."

"There should be food in the pantry." Estelle pointed to a little door in the corner.

The boys fetched sandwich ingredients while Estelle looked over the kitchen. It had smooth, lacquered wood counter tops and rows of cupboards, an island with barstools, and a big table in the middle of the room. Mr. Yates had done his best to prepare the house for them, setting up vases of flowers and making sure the place was dusted. There was even a pile of freshly chopped wood by the fireplace.

Despite Yuri's hesitations, once their pile of sandwiches were made he had to admit that Flynn's looked the nicest. Part of this was because Flynn spent a long time perfectly arranging tomato and lettuce in exactly the right position to ensure the most efficient distribution of flavour, but as soon as he started explaining this Yuri shoved an apple in his mouth. The rest of their food went into a basket found in a cupboard, and then Yuri grabbed a blanket out of the linen closet and they made their way outside.

Estelle ran to the edge of the cliff to get a proper look at the ocean. The strip of white sand was at least a hundred feet down and the curve of the cliff formed a shallow cove. One end of it wrapped around more than the other, as a rocky outcropping jutted out from the cliff wall. Down below, Estelle could faintly make out a dark shadow where the outcropping met the sand and wondered if there was a cave of some sort.

"Careful," Flynn said, coming up behind her. "There's a bit of a breeze and no railings. Mr. Yates was correct, this is rather precarious."

"Yes, I know." She took a step back. "I wonder why the Caverlys never put a fence or anything here? If they had a child, it would have been dangerous."

"Especially these stairs," Yuri said, about ten feet away. "They don't look like they've been maintained in years."

A flight of stone stairs curved down the cliff without a railing. They were wide, but invaded by moss and pebbles. Yuri took a few steps down. "Seems stable enough, though."

"What would your plan have been if they weren't stable?" Flynn asked wearily, following him down.

"Trust you to catch me, of course."

"Keep your eyes on the stairs, Yuri," Estelle said. "You don't want to fall."

They kept close to the cliff wall and made it down to the beach without disaster. As soon as they hit the bottom, Estelle slipped off her shoes and let her feet sink into the cool sand. It was late in the evening, but at this point of summer the sun wouldn't set for at least another hour or so. Despite the time of year, it wasn't particularly warm and Estelle was glad to be wearing a sweater.

"This looks nice enough," Yuri said, tossing the blanket to the ground.

Estelle stood on the beach and watched the waves rush toward her while Yuri and Flynn bickered about the proper way to set up a blanket and how important it was or was not to keep all grains of sand off it. This argument might take a minute or two, so she turned her back to them and strolled toward the curving wall of the outcropping.

She'd been right; there was a cave in the side of the cliff. It was just close enough to the beach that when the tide was lower, the entire mouth was probably exposed, but now waves lapped the entrance and frothy water flowed into the darkness. A band of dry seaweed marked the high-tide level, further up the beach. When the tide was high, the cave would be completely inaccessible without wading.

"Lady Estellise," Flynn called, "we've got dinner set up."

While Estelle walked back, Yuri punched Flynn's shoulder. "When are you going to start calling her 'Estelle', you dolt?"

"When she is no longer the princess."

They'd set out plates piled with sandwiches, sliced fruit, cream-filled pastries and thermoses of lemonade. She couldn't help but notice that one half of the blanket was notably more ruffled than the other, and could only imagine Yuri purposefully scuffing Flynn's half just to irritate him. "You know, Flynn," she folded her dress under her knees as she sat in the middle of the blanket, "Yuri is right. We're such good friends, you should call me Estelle, too."

Flynn smiled gently and picked up a sandwich. "I'm sorry, Lady Estellise, but if I let myself get into the habit, I'm certain to slip in formal situations."

She swallowed a bite of sandwich before responding. "If you insist."

Yuri stretched his legs out, letting his bare feet rest in the sand and leaning back on one arm. "What were you looking at over there, Estelle?"

"It's a cave of some sort. I think it's a sea cave. I've read about them - they're carved over thousands and thousands of years of waves hitting a cliff. I wonder how deep it is?"

Flynn eyed the opening, where frothy water swirled around kelp-covered boulders. "I don't think we'd want to check it out tonight. Not unless you remembered to pack my rubber boots."

"We'll check it out tomorrow," Yuri said. "I wouldn't want to go in there without a lantern, anyway."

"I didn't know there was a cave to explore," Estelle said, idly watching the waves crash in and out of it. "Mr. Yates didn't mention it in the advertisement. How exciting."

"Yeah, it looks pretty cool." Yuri turned his head to Flynn. "So, have you forgiven us for dragging you along yet?"

Flynn smiled. "Yes, I forgive you. It's been a long time since I took a proper vacation, and now that my mind is starting to relax, I'm realizing how stressed I've been."

"That's what I thought!" Estelle beamed at knowing he didn't hold it against them. "A change of scenery and some quiet time away from the castle will be perfect."

"And after all, we couldn't let your birthday go uncelebrated," Yuri said. "This is a big one. You're a whole quarter of a century old now. It might be time for Raven to pass the title of Old Man on to you!"

"Not for another day. And besides, you'll be twenty-five in a few months, too."

"You're both ancient to me!" Estelle finished her sandwich and reached for a strawberry.

"Yeah, that's right." Yuri sat upright so he could sling his arm around Estelle's shoulders. "Baby Estelle, a sprightly three whole years younger than us old fogeys." He raised his thermos in a toast. "But here's to Flynn, the oldest and fogiest of us all, who's managed to reach the age of twenty-five without dying of shock at the sight of my bedroom."

Estelle tapped her thermos to Yuri's. "Here here!"

Flynn just smirked and said, "One more day, so don't let your room here go into a mess in that time or I might not make it," and then completed the toast.

They spent the rest of the evening lying on the beach. When their food was nearly gone, Yuri started throwing grapes at Flynn. This quickly turned into a targeting game of seeing who could land the most grapes in another person's mouth, and Estelle was quite satisfied to have taken the crown in that one. They watched a crab scuttle toward the water and then began construction on a sand castle. At first, Flynn and Estelle discussed the noble king who lived in their beautiful kingdom of mounds and trenches, but then Yuri came by with a handful off oozing muck scooped from the tidal zone and drizzled it in towers, declaring the kingdom conquered by the shadow empire. In the end, the entire kingdom was washed away when the tide caught up to them, and they were forced to move their blanket further back.

By the time the sun went down, the three of them lay on their backs and watched the stars come out. Estelle lay between them, hands folded on her stomach. All she could hear was the rushing of the waves and the whisper of wind, and it almost felt like they were alone in the world. In a way, that's what they were for the duration of the vacation. There was no one else out here to bother them with government minutiae or spring guild missions on them at the last minute, and for the first time in months, Flynn didn't have any work to worry about completing the next day. It was such a simple thing, to lie on the beach and watch the stars, but with two of her favourite people on either side, Estelle thought this was enough to keep her perfectly happy for a long time.

Her eyes had grown heavy by the time Flynn said, "We should probably head back up."

Yuri almost sounded asleep himself. "Yeah."

They lay still for another minute before Flynn finally sat up. "Come on, then. We have nice soft beds awaiting us inside."

He held out his hand to help Estelle up, and then they packed up their picnic and trooped back up the stairs. They entered the house through the back door, accessed off a porch nearly identical to the one at the front. This one was a bit larger and had a swing bench hanging from a pair of chains. They left the basket on the counter to deal with tomorrow, and then headed up to the bedrooms.

"Goodnight," Estelle said on the landing. "Sleep well, see you in the morning, and thank you for a lovely evening." She gave them both a quick hug and then turned to her room. At the open door, she paused.

"Is something wrong?" Flynn asked.

She considered this, but then shook her head. "No, everything is fine."

"Alright then. Goodnight."

Estelle closed her door behind her and then sat on the bed. Everything was fine. The room was small but cozy, with a double bed covered in a quilt, a writing desk across from it tucked between the closet and the wall, and a pair of windows on the side wall that gave her a lovely view of the grassy cliffside, as well as the ocean if she looked to her left. She closed the white curtains and changed into a nightgown, and then curled up under the quilt. She closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep to the sound of the waves and the steady creaking of the bench swaying in the breeze.

The room was perfectly fine, it was just… well, she could have sworn she had closed the door behind her when they left this evening.


	3. If There's Something Strange

Flynn had one of his most restful sleeps in months. It hadn’t been his deepest sleep ever, but he didn’t think dropping into a death-like state after almost twenty-four straight hours of meetings and work counted as restful. The rhythmic rush of the waves had lulled to sleep quickly, and he awoke feeling like he’d slept for years.

Before heading downstairs, he took the time to unpack his belongings and put them away in the closet. Part of this was just to check what things his friends had packed for him. He wasn’t at all surprised to find they’d brought all the most casual clothes he owned. How did they even find some of these? They must have been buried in the darkest depths of his closet because he never had an occasion to dress so informally.

It really didn’t matter if most of these got wrinkled, but he unfolded them and hung them in the closet anyway. This was the master bedroom, so the closet itself was bigger than some rooms he’d slept in as a child. His week’s worth of clothing barely took up half a bar of hangers.

Just as he was about to leave, something caught his eye. On a shelf on the side wall of the closet was a small wooden box. Curious, Flynn reached for it and pulled down what looked like a large jewellery box. He stepped out of the shadowy closet to get a better look at it. After setting it on the bed, he raised the lid and found the inside covered in soft red velvet. Instead of jewellery, it contained folded pieces of paper. Flynn crossed his legs on the bed and pulled out the top one.

_Dear Bram_ ,

_Of course I forgive you. I do appreciate that you tried to defend my honour. I only found it alarming the extent you went to teach Hodge a lesson, not that you did it in the first place. I saw him at the tavern yesterday, by the way, so he seems to have recovered quickly. It’s a shame you had to leave so abruptly before we had time to talk about this, but of course you will be welcome home when your ship returns._

_Love with all my heart,_

_Karina_

This seemed to be a response to an earlier letter, and now Flynn’s curiosity was piqued. He put the paper aside and found an older one underneath.

_Dear Karina,_

_You know I hate leaving after an argument. If this shipment didn’t need to reach Mantaic within two weeks, I would have stayed until he worked things out. I truly am sorry for losing my temper the other night. After Hodge slapped your ass, I just saw red and couldn’t stop myself. I only felt compelled to defend you because I love you and couldn’t bear to see any harm come to you, but I realize I went overboard. I swear I paid for the apple gels to fix his broken nose, as you asked. I’m writing this at the port so I must make this quick, but I apologize as sincerely as I can. I hope when I return, you’ll forgive me._

_Love,_

_Bram_

Flynn imagined Karina Caverly carefully putting every letter away in a box, and then when her husband came back from sea he’d put the ones she sent to him away with them. Even though his job took him far from home, in the end both they and the letters would be together again. It was sweet. The next one he pulled out was even sweeter.

_Dear Karina,_

_I am sending this letter from Yurzorea. I hope the jade necklace I attached finds you well. The hot springs here are lovely and I hope to have the chance to bring you here one day. Our ship will only be docked here for another hour, so I’m writing this letter fast. I don’t have much time, so let me get this message out as clear as I can:_

_I LOVE YOU!!!_

_There, did you get that? I’d have written it larger, but I fear I would have run out of room on the paper. This afternoon we set sail for Mantaic, but my heart remains with you in Capua Nor. We’ve had nothing but smooth sailing and the weather continues to look lovely, so don’t worry about me. After Mantaic we’ll be heading back to Ilyccia, so I hope to be home within a month._

_I’m sorry, I have to finish this letter now. Arrangements need to be made and I still need time to leave this with the post at Yumanju. Take care and I hope you don’t miss me as terribly as I miss you, because I wouldn’t want you to feel this heartache. I couldn’t bear to think of you in pain._

_Love, always,_

_Bram_

Flynn couldn’t help smiling as he read the letter. The Caverlys must have forgotten to pack this box when they left, and Mr. Yates overlooked it in the corner.

The second letter was similar to the first:

_Dear Bram,_

_I’m glad to hear all is well on your voyage. I do hope you’re not abusing your privilege as captain! You may get to decide the rum rations, but that doesn’t mean you get to take as much as you want. You know how melodramatic you get when you drink, dear._

_The necklace reached me without trouble, and I must congratulate your taste! It’s simply beautiful. I’ll wear it everyday until you’re home so it will feel as if you’re still here. Of course I miss you, but please don’t worry too much about me. I have everything under control here. If ever I do feel lonely, I merely rest my hand on my belly to feel the life growing there. I certainly hope you don’t get delayed; I’ve promised our son or daughter that daddy would be here to see them when they’re born. Also, I’ve decided on a name. I agree with using your father’s name if it’s a boy, but if it’s a girl, I like the name Lucy. What do you think?_

_I can’t wait to meet him or her, and I can’t wait to see you again, either. I lie in bed at night thinking about you and how much I want to feel your presence beside me there. Your soft hands caressing_

Flynn dropped the paper, suddenly feeling like a pervert. These were their private love letters; he shouldn’t read them. His skin crawled and he glanced around the room. It felt like someone was watching and judging him for invading this couple’s privacy. He clicked the box closed and shook off the lingering guilt. It was a shame Mr. Yates didn’t know how to find Mr. And Mrs. Caverly now, or he’d try to return the letters.

After putting the box away where he’d found it, Flynn got dressed and headed down for breakfast. When he reached the doorway to the kitchen, he stopped and stared. Irritation settled into him - _Yuri_.

He must have been up first to make breakfast, but left a mess in his wake. The picnic basket from last night was tipped over, grape stems scattered on the floor. The messy plates sat on the counter in a ring, and crumbs were everywhere. Flynn didn’t know what Yuri had made for breakfast, but he must have used the stove and heavily deliberated which pan to use, because five different pans were stacked in a tower on the island.

It was one thing to leave his own bedroom in disarray, but Flynn wouldn’t stand for him leaving a mess in common areas. There was no way Flynn was cleaning this himself, so he stomped off to find the culprit. A quick glance showed he wasn’t in the living room, so Flynn rounded the separating wall to the sunroom, expecting to find him eating eggs on a bench bathed in light. This room was empty as well, and the wall-to-wall windows let him see the ground all around the back of the house. Either Yuri was down on the beach or he’d taken his breakfast back up to his room.

Flynn marched upstairs and banged on Yuri’s door. Yuri took his sweet time answering, and when he opened it he wore nothing but sweatpants, his eyes heavy and hair a mess.

“What the hell, Flynn? We’re on vacation. Go to sleep.”

Flynn was taken aback by Yuri’s appearance. “Did you go back to bed?”

“I’d _like_ to go back to bed. What the hell time is it, anyway?”

“Didn’t you just make breakfast?”

Yuri’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “What? You just woke me up.”

Flynn looked over to Estelle’s door in confusion. Surely she would never leave a mess like that. Back at Yuri, he said, “You’re not the one who left a mess in the kitchen?”

Yuri rubbed his eyes. “I haven’t been downstairs since last night and I’m offended you immediately assumed a mess was me.”

Flynn gave him a look.

“Ok, offended but not really surprised. Go see if Estelle’s up.”

Flynn crossed to her door and lightly knocked. Yelling at Yuri for making a mess was second nature, but accusing the princess of untidiness required much more delicacy.

Estelle answered the door in a blue nightgown, still blinking sleep from her eyes. “Good morning. Is something wrong?”

Flynn frowned. “Lady Estellise, this may sound like a weird question, but were you downstairs earlier this morning making breakfast?”

Her tiredness turned into confusion. “No. Why?”

Flynn’s heart quickened. If neither Yuri nor Estelle had been downstairs since last night, and he was certain he hadn’t, then who…? He took a tight breath. “The kitchen is a mess. Someone was in there last night. I think we need to search the house for an intruder.”

Estelle gasped and covered her mouth, while behind them Yuri had already gone to retrieve his sword. They met back up on the landing, swords in hand and properly dressed, all sleepiness vanished. The lighthearted peace of last evening was gone, and they trooped downstairs ready for anything. Any burglar who thought they’d be an easy target was in for a surprise.

In the kitchen, Yuri and Estelle examined the mess. “This definitely isn’t a case of gravity making things fall out,” Yuri said, eyeing the circle of plates.

Estelle nodded. “And those pans stacked on the island were in lower cupboards.”

“Nobody came into our bedrooms, though.” Flynn scanned the living room. “I’m certain we would have woken up.”

“And that’s where all our stuff is,” Yuri said. “We haven’t unpacked yet. They couldn’t have been trying to rob us, and if they wanted to rob the house, why do it the first night in years that it’s been occupied?”

Estelle gasped. “I just remembered. I thought I was misremembering last night, but when we got home, my bedroom door was open. I’m certain I closed it before we left. Could someone have been in here while we were down at the beach?”

Yuri and Flynn shared a worried look. Flynn said, “Let’s search the house.”

So much for a relaxing vacation. Yuri swung the cupboard doors open one by one, while Flynn and Estelle stood by with their swords drawn. If someone was lurking in the house, they’d search every inch until they found them. They checked the pantry, but the only intruder Flynn found on the sparse shelves was a spider.

“You don’t think they’re really still in the house?” Estelle asked, standing close to Yuri near the fireplace.

“Who knows?” Yuri leaned over the hearth and peered up the chimney, just in case. The fireplace was huge - big enough that a grown man could fit in it by crouching - but empty. The storage beneath the window seats on either side of the hearth were barren, and Flynn even got on his hands and knees to lift the sofa’s skirt and check under there. There was nothing beneath the couch but some dark splats of furniture polish on the wood floor.

“I’m gonna check the front room.” Yuri left, and Flynn hurried to follow. If there was someone lurking in their house, he’d rather they didn’t separate.

The foyer was easy to search because it had no furniture. Estelle checked the coat closet, but closed it again having found nothing. Yuri turned the knob for the front sitting room, but then frowned and shoved the door.

“Is it locked?” Flynn asked.

“It feels jammed, if anything. I can’t even rattle the knob.”

Flynn tried himself and sure enough the knob wouldn’t even twist. The brass knob was smooth and the double-doors devoid of a keyhole. “It doesn’t even have a lock. Maybe the hinge got jammed?”

“I could go outside and see if I can get through the window,” Estelle suggested.

“Just a sec,” Yuri said. “I’m gonna try something. Step back, Flynn.”

Flynn stepped aside. “What are you going to-?”

Yuri slammed his foot against the left door with a mighty bang, and both doors swung open. He started to fall forward, but Estelle caught him before he could land on his face. “Thanks.” He straightened up and stepped into the room. “There, nothing to it.”

Inside, Flynn examined the hinges and experimentally swung the door back and forth. Now that they were in, it moved easily like it had recently been greased. The knobs turned smoothly, and other than the crack in the panelling where Yuri had kicked, there was nothing wrong with the doors at all. Weird.

After that, he turned to see the rest of the room. It was a lot like the family room, with sofas and armchairs and a coffee table. A huge square rug covered nearly the entire floor, and the pale blue walls were adorned with paintings of lighthouses and ships at full sail. There was no sign of life under the furniture, in the closet, or behind the curtains. Estelle even checked inside the body of grandfather clock that stood next to a floor-length tapestry depicting deer in the woods.

“Do you smell something?” Estelle asked, sniffing the air.

Flynn and Yuri both stopped to sniff as well. Now that she’d drawn attention to it, he noticed a tang in the air. It was so faint he struggled to put his finger on it, but it seemed somewhat sour.

Yuri closed his eyes and breathed deeply, “It smells sort of like when a rat dies in the walls, but on the tail end of still being able to smell it.”

“That’s it,” Flynn nodded. The smell was something rotten, but so faint it was hard to pinpoint.

Estelle looked around the room with a frown. “Where could it be coming from?”

“Perhaps a mouse died in the walls.” It was the simplest explanation, but Flynn still felt uneasy. The smell alone wouldn’t have worried him, but coupled with the inexplicably jammed doors, the whole room made him nervous. Something about the room set him on edge, but like the odour, it was too mild to put into words.

“There’s nobody in here,” Estelle said, hurrying to the doors. “We should move on.”

The others felt the room’s edge as well, and no one objected to moving on and closing the doors behind them. As they stepped into the foyer, something thumped upstairs. All heads shot up, and as one they ran to the stairs.

Yuri made it first, stopping in the middle of the top landing. He sheathed his sword and shook his head. “It was just a falling picture.”

Next to the door to Flynn’s room, a painting lay flat on the floor. Flynn vaguely recalled that it was some naturey scene, and had been hanging on the wall next to his door. “Bad timing. I suppose the wire broke.”

Estelle crouched and picked it up, revealing an oil painting of the point behind the house. “It looks undamaged. Good, I wouldn’t want to break anything in Mr. Yates’ house. The nail must have slipped.” She hung it back on the wall, carefully straightening it, and then stepping back. The nail it hung from remained stable. “Um… it looks like it’s fixed now.”

“So it would seem,” Flynn said. That was… odd.

They searched the upstairs rooms, but by this point they didn’t expect to find anything. After all, they’d been up here just a short while ago and didn’t notice anything odd. They checked behind every curtain, under the beds, and in the bathroom. Nothing.

“If there was someone inside,” Yuri said when the reconvened on the landing, “it looks like they’re gone now.”

Estelle shuddered. “That’s almost worse. Now we have no idea who it might have been or what they wanted.”

“Whatever the case,” Flynn said, “they apparently had no intention of hurting us. I think the best we can do is try to relax today and lock the doors extra tight tonight.”

 

* * *

 

Estelle didn’t see much of Flynn throughout the day, but she didn’t hold it against him. She gave him a book and he curled up on the couch by the hearth and hadn’t moved for the rest of the day. It was sweet to see him so comfortable, drifting between reading and the occasional nap, more free than he’d been in months. It was good for him to have a day to spend doing absolutely nothing.

Her own day had been fairly similar. She sat on the bench on the back porch, swaying back and forth with her feet pulled up. Summer wasn’t as strong this close to the coast, but the wind wasn’t so cold she couldn’t let he bare toes curl on the polished wood. Every now and then she looked up from her book to gaze at the ocean stretching into the distance. Waves lapped the cliff and gulls called to each other as they flew over the sea. It was so much more peaceful here than at the castle, and she’d even managed to stop worrying about the apparent intruder. Whoever it had been, they were long gone now.

The chains squeaked as the bench swayed back and forth. She’d listened to the bench sway all night. It had been annoying at first, but she had quickly grown accustomed to the rhythmic creaking. A thought poked its head into her mind, too blurry and distant to decipher. Something about the creaking of the bench…

Her eyes drifted to the beam the bench hung from -

“Hey.”

Estelle’s head whipped around when the back door swung open and Yuri strolled onto the porch, and then shot back to the beam so quickly she feared she’d pulled a muscle. Her eyes locked on the dusty wood of the roof, hands clenched around her book.

“Are you ok?” Yuri asked.

Estelle stared for another second, and then let out a slow breath and lowered her head. “Yes. Sorry. I just… thought I saw something.”

Yuri stood next to the bench, put his hands on his hips, and looked up. “Something like what?”

Estelle followed his gaze, frowning. There was nothing up there but smooth, white-painted planks, crossbeams dusted with dirt, and a few thicker beams cutting across, such as the one the bench hung from. The angle of the setting sun created long shadows, but none were so dark to hide anything larger than a spider. “I don’t know. It was in the corner of my eye for less than a second, but… it was looking at me.”

Yuri’s frown deepened. “Well… there’s nothing there now.”

“No.” She slipped a bookmark into her book and closed it. “I must have been imagining things.” She finally paid attention to Yuri and noticed he carried a sandwich on a plate.

“This is for you.” He set the plate on the bench beside her. “Room service. Or, porch service.”

“Oh, thank you, Yuri! You didn’t have to do that.”

“Nah, it was no trouble. I was already making one for me. I don’t think Flynn even looked up when I gave him his.”

With a beam, Estelle looked over her shoulder through the window to see Flynn still curled up on the couch. “It’s nice for him to get a break.”

“Yeah. Every time I visit he’s so stressed out. This was a great vacation idea.”

“Oh, Yuri, did you check if there are ingredients to make a cake in the pantry?”

He nodded and then jumped off the porch. Steps, apparently, were beneath him. “Yep. I’ll make it tomorrow.”

Estelle watched Yuri stroll across the grass, wondering what he’d been doing all day. She and Flynn had been content to sit around and read books, but Yuri was used to far more activity. This was just the vacation Flynn needed, but suddenly she felt guilty for bringing Yuri. He’d agreed instantly when she suggested it, and they both knew this trip was for Flynn, but she felt bad for bringing Yuri out to the middle of nowhere with nothing to do.

For now he seemed content to stroll along the cliff, looking out to sea and kicking pebbles over the edge. She wanted to warn him to be careful on the edge of the cliff, but Yuri wasn’t the sort to take kindly to safety reminders.

“Hey, Estelle, come look at this.” He’d stopped near where the land projected outward and stared at the ground.

Estelle set her half-eaten sandwich on the bench and joined him to investigate. What he’d found was a broken plank of wood sticking out of the ground, like a fence board that had been snapped off a couple of inches out of the ground. Estelle ran her fingers across the jagged edge; it must have broken years ago.

“What do you think this was?”

“Maybe they were trying to build a fence. They had a kid, didn’t they? Letting a kid play outside here would be dangerous.”

“It looks like they only got one post in. Maybe the Adephagos happened and they left before completing it.”

“Could be.”

Estelle wandered away from the wooden anomaly and up the outcropping. She hadn’t explored up here yet, and wanted to see what the view was like from the point. The ground sloped up as grass gradually gave way to rock, until at the very end she stood on uneven boulders. The wind snatched away her breath and she stepped back, just in case. She’d gotten a brief view of waves crashing against sharp rocks below, but wasn’t keen on experiencing them up close.

What she had seen, though, was dry sand surrounding the mouth of the cave. Estelle hurried back down to Yuri and said, “I think we can enter the cave now. The tide is out.”

Yuri peered over the edge of the cliff. “Hey, you’re right. Let’s go get Flynn before it starts coming in again.”

Estelle grabbed her sandwich and ate while walking into the house. She smiled at Flynn, still exactly where they’d left him but a little farther in the book.

“Yo, Flynn,” Yuri called, strolling to the side of the couch and leaning over Flynn’s head. “Are you at a place where you can stop?”

Flynn craned his neck back to look up at Yuri. “Yes, just let me finish this page.” He turned his eyes back to the book, but a thought crossed his mind and he looked over his shoulder at Estelle eating the last of her sandwich by the door. “Did you guys just come in?”

Yuri nodded. “Yeah. Why?”

Flynn frowned, eyes drifting to the ceiling. “Huh… I thought I heard you upstairs a minute ago.”

A shiver rushed through Estelle and her eyes went to the ceiling as well. “What did you hear?”

“I wasn’t really paying attention.” His book landed on the coffee table with a thud and he stood. “Shuffling, a creak, a thud, things like that. I didn’t make note because I thought you were up there.”

Yuri’s expression hardened. “Looks like our visitor is back. Flynn, is your sword handy?”

He shook his head and spoke softly. “I left it in my bedroom. What about you two?”

Estelle hugged herself. “Me, too.”

_Bang!_

All three heads snapped up at the sudden noise.

“Awesome.” Yuri clenched his fists and strode toward the stairs. “Well, Flynn, we used to beat up guys twice our size with nothing but our fists.”

Flynn followed, face filled with concern rather than cocky determination. He made a fist, but cradled it in his other hand. “Those aren’t exactly instances I’d like to relive. Lady Estellise, perhaps you should stay-”

Estelle walked past him to follow Yuri.

Flynn sighed. “It was worth a shot.”

They crept up the stairs. Another bang sounded through the house, making Estelle jump. If someone had broken in, they were certainly terrible at sneaking. On the top landing, they heard a third bang and were now close enough to tell it was coming from Yuri’s room.

“Flynn, Estelle,” Yuri said in a low voice, “Get your swords.”

Estelle dashed to her room while Yuri stood ready outside his door. Her sword sat on her trunk in the closet (had she left the closet door open? She couldn’t remember now) and then they ran back out to stand in front of Yuri.

_Bang!_ The sharp crash came just as Flynn emerged, sword in hand. He threw the door open, sword out and ready to fight.

A few seconds later, Flynn lowered the sword and walked slowly into the room. Estelle followed, turning on the light as she went. The room was empty, but the window hung open. It slammed against the frame with another loud _bang_ and then drifted open again in the breeze.

“False alarm,” Flynn said. “Just remember to close your window next time, Yuri.”

Yuri pulled it shut. “I don’t even remember opening it.”

Just in case, Flynn checked the closet. Yuri hadn’t put any of his clothes away, so it was easy to tell it was empty. Estelle crouched to check under the bed, but the bottom of the frame was low enough to the ground that nobody could get under it without crushing a variety of bones.

“This must have been all I heard,” Flynn said. “The window banging and the wind.”

“I guess so.” Estelle looked around the room, expecting to find something but she didn’t know what. All three of them shared an apprehensive expression. It was too late to pretend there was nothing eerie about the house, but they had no evidence and nothing tangible to be afraid of.

“Let’s get down to the beach,” Yuri said. “Exploring a cave sounds cool, right?”

“Yes, let’s.” The house was making Estelle feel nervous. A break down to the beach was just what she needed.

Yuri found a lantern in the closet in the foyer, and then they left the house behind. Estelle made extra sure to lock all the doors, just in case. Down at the beach, the low tide exposed more sand than ever and it was an easy walk to the cave.

“Slow down, Lady Estellise,” Flynn said when she ran forward. “You might trip on something without light.”

She waited in the mouth of the cave for Yuri to arrive. It was a cool day, but even that felt warm compared to the chill of the cave. Estelle stared into the inky depths, imaging what marvellous mysteries it might contain.

Yuri and Flynn caught up quickly, and then the lantern illuminated a long stone passage. They walked forward slowly, feet sinking into the cold, damp sand. The roof was high, maybe twice as tall as her, and the passage was wide enough she could lie straight with plenty of room to spare.

“How did this cave get here, anyway?” Yuri asked, stepping on a boulder jutting out of the sand like an island. “Something didn’t burrow it, right?”

“I don’t think so.” Estelle stopped to run her hand over the rough wall. “Sea caves are formed over thousands of years by waves eroding a weak point in the cliff. Most of them are just shallow recesses, but some can be quite deep. I read it in a book.”

“So how deep is this one, I wonder?” Yuri held the lantern up and tried to see to the end, but the light wasn’t strong enough to penetrate that far.

“Hello!” Flynn shouted, and a soft, _lo, lo, lo…_ bounced back at them. “It’s big enough to cause an echo, at least.”

“I did bring my sword, at least,” Yuri said, strolling forward. “So if we run into any monsters, I’m ready.”

“Me, too,” Estelle said. “But I don’t think it will be necessary. There’s no food source in the cave and it’s inaccessible by water for most of the day, so it doesn’t seem like a good home for anything more than snails.”

“Hey, look,” Yuri stopped and shone the light ahead.

A second passage broke off from this one, but now that she looked closer, Estelle spotted a few more openings on the rock ahead. “Let’s see where this one goes,” she said, turning left into the first tunnel. It curved, and then forked off as well. The right fork turned and let out at what she was certain was the same tunnel they’d come from, while the left fork travelled further into the cliff.

“We should be careful,” Flynn said. “If it keeps branching like this, we might get lost.”

“Keep an eye on our footprints,” Estelle said. “No one has been in here since the tide went out. The sand is perfectly smooth except for our prints.”

“Good thinking, Estelle.” Yuri chose the left fork and strode ahead. “We won’t stay too long, though. Once the tide starts coming in again, those prints’ll be washed away.”

“Right,” Flynn said, checking over his shoulder. They could still faintly see light from the entrance. “Let’s be careful.” As soon as he said that, Flynn stumbled and fell forward, catching himself on Estelle’s shoulder. “Ah! Sorry, Lady Estellise.”

“Are you ok?”

“What did you trip on?” Yuri said, laughter in his smile. “A particularly stiff clump of sand?”

“No, it was solid and round.”

Yuri lowered the lantern and the light glinted off a shiny green glass. Flynn picked up a cloudy bottle, half-filled with watery sand. “Someone has been in here, it would seem.”

“Looks like it,” Yuri said. “Though it’s probably been here for years.”

They explored the cave further. Now that Estelle was looking, she spotted more artifacts buried in the sand. Flasks, buckles, coins, and more mundane things like driftwood and dried seaweed. They lurked half-buried behind boulders and in crevices.

“You know, I think maybe these items weren’t left here by people.” She took Flynn’s hand and he helped her step up on a large boulder to avoid a tide pool otherwise cutting off the tunnel.

“Oh, so these are bottles from the famous beer-drinking fish monsters, then?” Yuri held out the lantern to illuminate the sand as she and Flynn hopped off the boulder.

“No, I think the water brought them in. The tide washes everything into the cave, and then when it pulls out the items get lodged in the sand and left behind. I bet there’s even more stuff at the very back of the cave. Over the years, I’m sure countless treasures got washed back there!” Her excitement grew at the thought. “Maybe if we find the furthest cavern, we’ll find a stockpile of old pirate treasure!”

Flynn laughed. “More likely a pile of fish bones and kelp, but pirate treasure sounds much more interesting.”

They came out in a cavern with a selection of tunnels to choose from. By now they were so deep in the cave that Yuri’s light was the only salvation from darkness so thick she could cut it with a knife. The light fell on a piece of wood buried in the sand, and when Estelle dug it out she found a toy horse.

“Now I’m sure the tide brought it in,” she said. “No one would let a child young enough to play with this so deep into the cave.”

“Too bad, either way,” Yuri said. “Poor kid lost their toy.”

“It probably belonged to the kid who used to live in our house,” Flynn said. “Anyway, I think we should start heading back. I’m not sure how long we’ve been here and the tide might start coming in soon.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Yuri said. “You ready to go back, Estelle?”

She nodded. “Yes. I wouldn’t want our feet to get wet.”

Going back before the water returned was also essential because it let them follow their footsteps. Estelle hadn’t realized just how twisted their route had become until she tried picking which tunnel to follow without looking at the ground. Her thoughts went back to the toy they’d found, fervently praying it was indeed washed in by the tide. She could just imagine a small child wandering into the cave at low tide and getting hopelessly lost. How deep would the water be at high-tide? Deep enough to drown a child? That might be a better fate that lurking through the tunnels for days, slowly dying of dehydration. She found herself sticking closer to Yuri’s light.

Exploring the cave had been great fun, but reaching daylight again was a relief. Water lapped the mouth of the cave, so they ran to the end of the main tunnel before it could get any closer. As it was, they tried to run for the beach while the wave receded, and seawater lapped at their heels just as they reached dry sand.

“It sure comes in fast,” Yuri said, sitting in the sand.

Flynn nodded. “It’s hard to believe that in only a few hours, everywhere we walked will be underwater.”

“I guess we should go back up,” Estelle said.

“Yeah.” Yuri gazed up the cliff at the barely-visible roof. “Let’s see if our intruder came back for another visit.”

“It’s just so creepy,” Estelle said as they started up the stairs. “To think that someone might be sneaking into our house while we’re gone… or worse, while we’re still there!” She shuddered. After all the monsters and villains they’d faced, Estelle wasn’t exactly frightened of a run-of-the-mill burglar. She’d just rather face them right out than lie in bed paranoid that someone had been in her room while she was gone.

At the top of the stairs, Estelle turned to the house, ready for anything. The back door was shut and none of the windows open, so-

Flynn gasped and drew his sword.

“What?” Yuri’s eyes darted between Flynn and the house. “What did you see?”

Estelle stared at the house while goosebumps rose along her arms.

“I saw something in your window,” Flynn said softly. “A shadow. Maybe the shape of a person. It moved too quickly to tell.”

Yuri grimaced. “I sure hope there’s a person up there. Then I can kick his ass and put an end to this nonsense.”

Flynn and Estelle were equally eager to end this. Swords drawn, they followed Yuri into the house. As soon as they stepped inside, a series of soft footsteps ran over their heads. Estelle’s heart skipped a beat, but at least it was concrete proof that there was definitely someone up there. At least they didn’t sound very large. She shared a determined look with Yuri, and then all three of them headed up to confront the interloper.

There was nothing. For what felt like the hundredth time, they thoroughly searched the upstairs, peeking in all the closets and checking under all the beds. No one on the landing, no one in the bathroom, no one in the study, and no one in the bedrooms.

“Where the hell are you!?” Yuri shouted when they stood on the landing again. “We know you’re in here. Come out now and we won’t hurt you.”

Estelle’s gaze drifted around the landing, searching for any sign of the intruder. She _knew_ she’d heard footsteps up here.

Then someone giggled. It was playful, high-pitched, and too faint to pinpoint a direction. All three looked around on high-alert, but the house remained still.

“Who’s there?” Flynn called. The silence was so final it was an answer on its own.

Estelle pressed against Flynn’s shoulder. “I know this is going to sound weird, but… do you guys think… this house is haunted?”

Yuri grimaced and lowered his sword, since it didn’t look like anyone was going to attack them. “I think you might be right.”

“Ghosts?” Flynn frowned. “I hesitate to believe it. Based on the evidence, though….”

“To be honest, I’d prefer it was a ghost,” Yuri said. “I like that better than thinking some creeper is hiding in our house and messing around when we’re not looking. A ghost sounds a lot less threatening than that.”

“True,” Flynn said. “If it is indeed a ghost, they don’t seem to be dangerous. Opening windows and messing with pots is more annoying than threatening.”

Estelle backed away and leaned against the wall, deep in thought. Her eyes fell on the painting that had fallen this afternoon, and then she thought about the pots stacked in a tower and the playful giggle. The little wooden toy deep in the cave crossed her mind again, and she said, “I think it’s a child. These things that have happened seem to me like a little boy or girl playing around.”

“Mr. Yates did say the Caverlys had a kid,” Yuri said. His thoughtful expression turned sad. “You know that fence post we found, Estelle? What if there’s a reason they never finished building it.”

Estelle’s fingers covered her mouth as grief hit her face. “Oh, no… you don’t think…?”

Flynn filled in the pieces. “Maybe it wasn’t the Adephagos that drove Mr. and Mrs. Caverly from this house. Maybe their child fell from the cliff and they couldn’t bear to stay here any longer.”

“But the child is still here.” Estelle’s heart went out to the young, lost soul. “How awful. They must be scared and lonely out here all alone.”

“I wonder if there’s anything we can do,” Yuri said.

“For now, probably not,” Flynn said. “Perhaps when we get back to Zaphias we can research any paranormal theories. I wouldn’t even know where to begin trying to help a ghost move on.”

“Yes.” Estelle nodded sagely. “We simply have to help this child as soon as we can.”

“Until then, there’s nothing to do but live with it.” Yuri shrugged. “Change under your covers if you’re worried about being spied on.”

They agreed that there was nothing to be done but deal with the ghost, and retired for bed.

It was actually exciting, Estelle thought later as she lay in bed. A real live ghost - er, a real _dead_ ghost - in their house. She’d always believed in ghosts, and their experiences on the _Atherum_ only confirmed it was possible. This was supposed to be a relaxing vacation, but this was the kind of excitement she could handle.

She closed her eyes and drifted toward sleep with the sound of the creaking bench in the background. The steady creak made a relaxing white noise layered over the rhythm of the waves. C _reak… creak… creak…_

Estelle had just about fallen asleep when a thought struck her and she opened her eyes. _Creak… creak…_ That was the bench swaying on the porch, except… that wasn’t what the bench sounded like. She’d spent the entire afternoon swinging back and forth on it, and the chains had made more of a rusty squeak. This didn’t sound like metallic links at all. It sounded like… well, she wasn’t sure.

She slipped out of bed and crept to the window. Maybe it was a tree? There were no trees up here, there. She stared out the window at the empty grass, but didn’t see a source. It sounded like it was coming from the porch, but she didn’t have a window on that side

Estelle walked to the door, slowly. She would pop down to the porch and check it out. When her bedroom door swung open, the darkness of the landing unfolded before her. The only light came from what little moonlight filtered up from the windows downstairs, and she could see nothing but vague outlines of the walls. The light switch was on the other side, by the stairs. That was ok, there was nothing to worry about tripping over. It was silly to be afraid, but the excitement of having a ghost in the house seemed a lot less fun late at night. She’d just turn her bedroom light on to illuminate the hallway.

She looked to the switch on her wall and flipped it on, and then her head whipped back to the stairs. Had she just seen -? No. There was nothing. Her overactive mind had just imagined that humanoid shadow lurking in the darkness only a few feet from where she stood. She’d only seen it out of the corner of her eye and it was gone within the millisecond it took to look closer, so it must just be a trick of the light playing on her nerves.

Light from her bedroom spilled across the landing, which was perfectly devoid of ghosts. There was _nothing_ there, and even if there was, they’d already determined that the ghost was a harmless child.

She could tell herself that as much as she wanted, but she still turned around and decided the mysterious creaking wasn’t that big a deal anyway. Estelle turned off the light and crawled back into bed. Outside, the steady creaking continued. She tried her bet to tell herself it was nothing to be afraid of, but it took a long time to finally drift to sleep.


	4. They're Here

Estelle awoke to the slamming of her closet door. She bolted upright within a second and tried to figure out if she'd been dreaming. The slatted wooden door of the closet had been closed when she went to bed, and it was closed now, but she was  _sure_  she'd heard it swing shut. Maybe she was just imagining it, like she'd imagined that shadow on the landing last night. Pale dawn light filled the room and the creaking from before had disappeared, and it seemed foolish to be frightened in such benign circumstances.

The closet door moved. Estelle's breath caught in her throat and the white-painted door slowly and silently opened. Inside, there was nothing but a few hanging dresses and her trunk against the wall. Estelle pulled her blanket closer around her and leaned against the wall, eyes glued to the closet door. She'd put her sword away in the corner of the closet, and she didn't dare approach it now. She wanted to call to Flynn or Yuri, but her throat was frozen. Besides, a closet door wasn't the most threatening thing. They were probably sleeping and she'd feel silly waking them up for something as harmless as a closet door.

It slammed shut again and Estelle jerked her blanket toward her chin. As firmly as she could, she called, "Who's there?"

A childish giggle was her only response. Estelle took a deep breath and forced herself to lower the blanket. There was nothing to be afraid of. It was just a lonely child who happened to be dead. She'd faced far scarier monsters before.

Then both doors of the closet flew open and the dresses rustled. Estelle couldn't tear her eyes away as they shook and swung on their hangers. "What do you want? Can I help you?"

The rustling ceased and the room went still. Estelle scanned the room, considering running to Flynn or Yuri's room. If the ghost had vanished for now, this might be her only chance. Certainly she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep after this, so she should get out now and at least head downstairs.

She began slowly pushing the blanket down and preparing to dash to her door when something appeared on the foot of her bed. Estelle gasped at the sudden apparition and jerked her legs away from the end of the bed. It took a second of panic to even register what the figure was: a girl. She kneeled on the bed, watching Estelle with her head cocked to the side. Her dirty blonde hair hung around her face in a pair of braids as she leaned forward on her hands.

Estelle stared back at the girl, trying not to think about how weird it was to be able to see the wall through a child's head. "H-hello…"

For a protracted moment, the girl said nothing. Estelle was about to speak again when finally the ghost spoke. "Are you a princess?"

Estelle blinked. That hadn't been what she expected, but the girl leaned forward eagerly. Estelle simply said, "Yes."

The girl's face lit up. "I knew it!" She vanished, and a few seconds later she reappeared in the closet and ran her hands across the dresses. "You have so many pretty princess dresses! Do you have a tiara? Can I wear it?"

"Um… I do, but I didn't bring it."

"Awww…"

"My name is Estelle. What's your name?"

When she spun around, her daisy yellow skirt flowed like it was underwater. "My name is Lucy! You're the princess from Zaphias, right? I've heard of you. My mommy said you were going to be the empress one day."

"Actually, my relative Ioder is the emperor now."

"That's ok. Being a princess is funner than being an empress. Will you play with me?"

"Ok." Estelle crawled out of bed and straightened her night gown. Her fear had gone away and all she was left with was surprise. She had never expected to play princess with a ghost, and this vacation was turning out a lot more interesting than she had anticipated.

"Yay!" Lucy jumped in the air. "Let's go downstairs and we can have a tea party, ok?"

"Why don't we wake my friends up and they can play, too?" Wouldn't this be a birthday surprise for Flynn.

Lucy's smile dropped. "You mean the  _boys_?"

Estelle nodded. "Yes, my friends. Their names are Flynn and Yuri."

Lucy wrinkled her nose. "I don't wanna play with boys. Besides, they're not princesses. I used to play princess tea party with my mommy but she went away so now I wanna play with you."

"Oh, all right." Her heart went out to the poor girl. Maybe if Mr. and Mrs. Caverly knew Lucy was still around as a ghost, they wouldn't have left.

Lucy disappeared and reappeared next to the door, which swung open without her touching it. "Come on, come on!"

"I'm coming!" Estelle hurried out of her room and headed downstairs to have a tea party with a ghost.

* * *

 

Something heavy fell on Flynn, jolting him from sleep. In the first confused seconds upon awakening, he became aware of something smothering him and a weight pinning him to the bed. Thoughts of ghosts flew through his mind and he panicked, flailing his legs and struggling to push the blanket away from his face.

"Happy birthday!" Yuri shouted.

Flynn paused, taking stock of the weight and realizing it was human-shaped. He pushed up, but the blanket pinned his arms down and Yuri had the advantage of gravity. "Get off me."

"No, no, we need to celebrate your birthday properly. Twenty-five, is it? This might take a while." He punched Flynn's side, light enough that through the padding of the blanket, Flynn barely felt it. "There's one. Two!" His other fist hit Flynn's opposite side.

"Yuri, stop, let me up."

"Nope!" He punched Flynn a third time but pulling his arms away to punch gave Flynn an opening to try to throw him off.

Flynn kicked and thrashed, throwing punches of his own through the blanket as Yuri rained abuse on him. Yuri counted through his laughter, though it became harder and harder to land punches as Flynn slowly gained the upper hand and struggled out from under the blanket.

"You're such a child!" Flynn's yell was smothered by the blanket in his face, and Yuri responded with another easy punch to his shoulder.

"Younger than you, old man!"

Flynn's attempt to kick him between the legs was ruined by Yuri's knees holding the blanket tight.

"Twenty-five!" Yuri announced, punching Flynn square in the belly. Then Yuri rolled over and lay on his back, panting for breath.

Flynn threw the blanket off and emerged with a gasp. The blanket had left his hair in even more disarray than usual. "Are you satisfied?"

Yuri grinned. "Yep. Happy birthday."

Flynn punched Yuri's shoulder. "Thanks, I guess. I hope we didn't wake Estellise."

"I'm pretty sure she's already up. Her door was open when I came over here. You hungry?"

Flynn nodded. "What do you want for breakfast?"

"I was going to ask you that." Yuri hopped off the bed. "You decide, birthday-boy."

"Oh, I don't know… cook whatever you feel like."

Yuri slapped his forehead. "No, it's your birthday, you're supposed to pick what  _you_  want."

Flynn shrugged. "I like everything you cook. Let's see what Estellise wants."

"She's going to say the same thing," Yuri said as they left the room. "She's going to tell you that it's your birthday so you have to pick, so you might as well figure it out."

Flynn sighed. "How about waffles?"

"Sounds good."

They started down the stairs. At the middle landing where the stairs turned, Flynn stopped and held out his arm to block Yuri. His ears prickled and then he glanced back at Yuri. "Do you hear Estellise's voice?"

Yuri nodded slowly. Quietly, he said, "Sounds like she's talking to someone."

"Who in the world could she be talking to?" Thoughts of the intruder put him on edge. They'd suggested it was a ghost last night, but Flynn wasn't sure he believed in such things. Estelle's voice didn't sound frightened, but if someone had broken into their house and was having a chat, maybe she was just good at keeping her cool. In any case, he hurried forward. With Yuri close behind, he burst out of the foyer and found Estelle sitting at the dinner table with a tea set. She looked up as he and Yuri entered and smiled.

"Good morning. Happy birthday, Flynn."

Flynn stared at the table. There were clearly two places set up, but no tea in the cups. Was she getting things ready for them? But who was she talking to?

"Everything ok?" Yuri asked. "We heard you talking."

"Oh, yes." She glanced to the empty chair in front of the other table setting. "Lucy, where did you go? It's ok, these are my friends. They're very nice."

Flynn shared a nervous look with Yuri. Estelle was an adult; shouldn't she have grown out of imaginary friends by now?

Yuri looked back to Estelle first, and then his breath cut off. Flynn shared his shock when he saw a small, transparent girl hiding behind Estelle's chair, peering around her shoulder. "Is that…?"

"Yuri, Flynn, meet Lucy Caverly. She used to live here."

Yuri stared for a second, and then waved. "Yo."

"We're having a princess tea party," Estelle explained, like that answered everything.

Any intelligent response fled from Flynn's mind. "I… see."

"That looks fun." Yuri walked closer. "Mind if we join?"

"No!" Lucy yelled, stopping Yuri short.

"No? Aw, but I want to play princesses, too."

Lucy huddled behind Estelle. "You're not a princess. Go away."

Estelle turned to her. "Lucy, that isn't very nice. Apologize to Yuri."

"No, it's fine," Yuri said. "She's right; I'm definitely not a princess." He reached the table and leaned on it.

Flynn would never cease to be amazed at Yuri's ability to roll with things. Flynn was still reeling from the presence of a ghost playing princess, while Yuri had already moved on to chatting like she was a normal little girl.

"I'm going to cook waffles. Do you want any, Estelle? You can have some too, Lucy, if you still eat."

Lucy shook her head. Flynn had still only seen half of her, since she was hiding behind Estelle. "No. Go away. You're interrupting. I wanna play with Estelle."

Estelle frowned. "Lucy, the boys need to use the kitchen. If you want, we can move somewhere else to play."

"Ok," she muttered. Estelle gathered the teapot and cups onto a platter. She gave Flynn and Yuri an apologetic look and then crossed to the foyer. "Here, let's sit in front room. There's a nice coffee table we can-"

"No!" The doors slammed shut in Estelle's face and Lucy appeared behind her. "We can't go in there!"

Estelle glanced between Lucy and the doors in confusion. "Why not? You can barely notice the funny smell."

Lucy shook her head. "No, that's a bad place. You can't go in."

"What makes it bad?" Flynn asked.  _I'm talking to a ghost_. This was such a weird birthday.

Lucy hid behind Estelle's skirt and watched him warily. She didn't speak until Estelle repeated the question. "It just is. It's a bad and scary place and you can't go in, not ever!" As her voice rose, the chandelier above them swayed and the light flickered.

Estelle shared a nervous glance with Flynn and then said, "Ok, Lucy, we won't go in. Why don't we go up to my bedroom?"

Lucy nodded, and a second later she appeared at the top of the stairs. "Hurry up, Estelle."

Estelle looked to Yuri and Flynn. "Happy birthday, Flynn. You don't mind if I entertain her for a little bit, do you?"

Flynn shook his head, smiling slightly. Of course Estelle would be eager to help a dead little girl. "Go on and have fun."

After she disappeared upstairs, Yuri took a long look at the doors and tried the knobs. Just like yesterday, they were jammed. "I'd try to kick it in again, but I think that might make the kid mad."

"What do you make of this, Yuri? It's one thing to think a house might be haunted and another to have a conversation with a ghost."

"Sure is weird. I wonder why she hates this room in particular?"

Yuri was right: there were more important things to worry about than the mere fact of ghosts existing. He recalled the unpleasant odour and the uneasy feeling in the room and suppressed a shudder. "I don't know, but the girl might be right about this room being bad. There's something very peculiar about it."

Yuri strolled into the kitchen and stopped, gazing out the windows at the cliffs and the ocean beyond. "We thought she died by falling off the cliff. Do you think there's more to it?"

Flynn followed, checking the doors over his shoulder when he stood next to Yuri. There was something ominous about the simple white doors. "You think she died in that room?"

"I think a child would associate a room they'd suffered greatly in as a 'bad place'."

"Could there have been an accident?"

Yuri grimaced. "I don't know, but I'd like to find out. I wonder if Mr. Yates has any additional information to help us get in touch with her parents. Maybe if we could write to them, they could come back and put her to rest, or at least keep her company."

"That reminds me. I found a box of letters yesterday in my closet. They're from Mr. and Mrs. Caverly, to each other. Perhaps they might have some clues about where they'd move?"

"That might help. I'll start making breakfast, you go get the box."

Upstairs, Flynn heard Estelle's voice from her bedroom. He wasn't sure how he felt about her playing with a ghost. Lucy seemed harmless enough, but he didn't know what to expect from a ghost.

In his closet, he pushed the clothes to one side and reached for the box of letters on the top shelf. As his fingers brushed the box the closet door swung shut. Flynn plunged into darkness and he turned around to push it open again. A draft must have blown it shut. Yes, that must be it. He twisted the doorknob, but it wouldn't budge. That was… a really strong draft. It couldn't be a ghost, though, because Lucy was distracted in Estelle's bedroom.

He tried the door a few more times, but didn't have any luck. "Lady Estellise!" He rapped the door. "Estellise, could you please help me out?!"

Flynn waited a few moments, but Estelle didn't respond. Why wouldn't she come running if he called for her? Was she all right? Fear for her gripped him and he cursed himself for leaving her alone with a ghost. Lucy must have done something to her! "Estellise! Estellise, if you can hear me, please come to my bedroom! Yuri!" He smashed his fists against the door, rattling its hinges.

Surely light from outside should penetrate the cracks around the door, and by now his eyes should have begun to adjust to the low light. Instead he closed them, because the complete lack of stimuli despite being open made his eyes feel achingly hollow. The closet was so oppressively dark he could feel it curl around him like smothering blanket. His chest felt tight, like the darkness was a physical veil he struggled to breathe through. Flynn pounded on the door again until his fists hurt. "Come on…" he muttered. He was afraid now, not for himself but for his friends. If they weren't responding to his increasingly desperate attempts to summon attention, something must be keeping them away. His desperation to get out of the closet spiked with the need to find out what happened to them.

"Yur-" his mouth snapped shut. Had he just heard something? Flynn tried to quiet his breathing, which was difficult because he now felt like the darkness was squeezing the air from his lungs. He could have sworn he heard… a rustle. There, that was it. So soft it was barely noticeable, but when he held his breath and stood absolutely still, he heard the soft whisper of fabric sliding against each other, and then the faintest scrape of metal on metal. It was impossible to see anything but he turned his head in the direction of the noise anyway. It came again, and he swallowed a lump in his throat when he recognized it. Something was rustling in his hanging clothes.

Flynn stepped back, slowly. Being alone in the darkness was unnerving, but the only thing worse was realizing that he  _wasn't_  alone. Flynn backed away until he pressed against the side wall, right under the shelf with the box. The rustling only became more lively, and the lack of anything else for his ears to focus on made it seem thunderous. He had left his sword in the closet, but it was on the other side and the only thing he knew for sure was that he didn't want to get any closer to whatever was over there.

He forced himself to control his breathing. Panicking wasn't going to help anyone, and he needed to get out of here so he could help Yuri and Estelle before it was too late. Deep breath…. Now let it out…. Pause….

Someone took a breath and it wasn't him. Flynn's heart jolted and he fought down a tremor of fear. The darkness surrounding him was already absolute, so instead of growing darker it grew heavier. He felt pressure pounding against his face like he was underwater and he gasped for air. It pressed against him until his trembling knees could no longer support him and he sank to the ground. He pulled his knees tight and pressed his back against the wall, so firmly he thought he might break through it and find freedom.

On top of the noise getting closer and closer, he could  _feel_  the presence of something other in the closet. Flynn squeezed his eyes tight and hugged his knees, praying it would leave him alone. The floor creaked and the carpet rustled and he knew the thing was right in front of him now, standing so close he could reach out and touch it if he dared. Goosebumps sprouted across his arms and his breathing came in shaky gasps. The world was crushing him, like it was trying to squeeze him out of existence, and he almost hoped it did before the presence standing before him decided to act.

A beam of light hit his face and the pressure vanished in an instant. Flynn gasped and blinked against the blinding light.

"Flynn?" Yuri stood in the doorway. "Are you ok?"

Flynn seized his chance and bolted out of there like a rabbit. He charged straight into the bed and fell on his stomach, heaving for breaths.

"What the hell were you doing in there?"

Flynn rolled on his side and saw Yuri still standing in the doorway of the closet, one hand on the knob.

"Don't go in there!" He sat on the edge of the bed, still coming to terms with the fact that he was fine, Yuri was unhurt, and the closet was now nothing more than a dimly lit space with some shirts on hangers.

Yuri gave the closet a confused look. "So, are you gonna explain yourself or do you just have an irrational phobia of closets now?"

As succinctly as he could, Flynn tried to explain what had happened. He struggled to find adequate words to describe the terror he'd felt. It wasn't that the dark closet had been scary, it was like horror had saturated the scarce air and soaked through his skin, penetrating his bones with hopeless dread.

When Flynn finished, Yuri looked back to the closet, uncertain this time. "That's… pretty weird."

"Didn't you hear me shouting?"

Yuri reached into the closet and pulled all Flynn's clothes off the rack. Flynn considered helping, but he couldn't bring himself to get any closer to that doorway at the moment. Yuri dumped the clothes on Flynn's bed and shook his head. "No, I didn't hear a thing. After you took five minutes to come down I came to see if you got caught up in something."

"Five minutes? Is that all it was?" It had felt like at least half an hour.

"I'm certain. Did you get the box of letters?"

He shook his head. "No. I had just been about to grab it when the door shut."

Yuri returned to the closet and poked his head in. He looked around for a bit, and then leaned over to grab something off the ground. "Is this the box?"

"That's it." Yuri held it out with the lid flung open. It was empty. "There were pages of letters in there yesterday."

Yuri snapped the lid shut and set it on the dresser. "Nothing now. Do you think whatever it was didn't want you reading those letters?"

Flynn remembered the unsettling feeling he'd felt yesterday while reading them, like someone was watching and judging him. He nodded slowly. "That might be it."

They heard a giggle and both looked in the direct of Estelle's room. "Do you think Lucy had anything to do with this?" Yuri asked.

"As far as we know she's the only ghost. I'll ask."

"I need to take the waffles off before they burn. If you're sure you're ok, go ask Lucy while she's playing with Estelle and come down when you're ready."

Yuri headed downstairs and Flynn lightly knocked on Estelle's door. She beckoned him in and when he entered, he found her alone. Estelle sat on the floor with the tea set spread out on a blanket.

"Lucy," Estelle said, "it's ok to come out. Flynn is a friend, remember?"

Lucy appeared again, hiding behind Estelle.

"Hello, Lady Estellise." Flynn squatted so he could talk to Lucy face to face. "And hello Lucy, too. Actually, I wanted to ask you a question. Can you do that?"

Lucy looked questioningly to Estelle, who smiled and nodded. "Go on, Lucy. Flynn is super nice, I promise."

Lucy hesitantly stepped out from behind Estelle and watched Flynn warily. "What?"

"Lucy, did you lock me in the closet just now? If you did, I need to know and I promise I won't be mad."

Estelle gave him a worried look, but stayed quiet while waiting for Lucy to answer.

"No." Lucy shook her head and folded her arms. "I didn't."

"Are you sure? I'm not mad and you won't be in trouble if you did."

"I didn't!" She stomped her foot. "I was with Estelle."

Flynn wasn't sure how good that alibi was when he didn't know the limits of a ghost's power, but she seemed pretty adamant. "Do you know who or what did?"

"Mmm…" She clutched her hands and looked at the ground, squirming and frowning.

"Lucy?" Estelle asked gently. "Do you know anything?"

She shook her head tightly. "M-mm." Her lips pressed together and she refused to meet their eyes.

Flynn held back a frown; looking unhappy would only seal her up more. "Lucy, if there is something dangerous in this house, then it's very important that you tell us."

She threw her fists out at the side. "I didn't do nothing! And - and you're not allowed to play in Mommy and Daddy's room! He'll get mad! Leave me alone!" As her voice reached a high pitch, the light in Estelle's room flickered. It didn't stabilize again until Lucy vanished, leaving Flynn and Estelle exchanging a worried look.

"That's… worrying." Flynn sat across from Estelle.

"Are you all right, Flynn? What happened with the closet?"

Flynn explained again, and Estelle's eyes were wide by the time he finished.

"Oh, that's horrible! Lucy was with me the entire time. She seemed perfectly normal and innocent. I can't believe she'd orchestrate something like that."

Flynn nodded. "I believe that. What I'm concerned about is that she mentioned a 'he' during her little tantrum. Do you think it's possible there is more than one spirit in this house?"

Estelle hunched her shoulders and frowned. "Well… I didn't want to think about this before, but last night I could have sworn I saw someone on the landing, but only for a fraction of a second. They were definitely taller than Lucy, though."

Flynn drummed his fingers on the carpet. "How sure is Mr. Yates that Lucy's parents are alive somewhere far away?"

"He said the house was found empty, so they assumed the family left. You think the entire family died? But what could have killed them?"

"I don't know. Everything was in chaos during the Adephagos. Aer-sick monsters? Scared looters from Capua Nor? More importantly, do you think we're in danger staying in this house?"

"Hm…" Estelle put her fingers to her lips. "If we assume that the 'he' Lucy mentioned is Mr. Caverly, and he's the one who locked you in the closet, then I think we can assume he was trying to keep you from accessing the box of love letters. They were very private between him and his wife, so he wanted to keep them away from you. What happened was frightening, I'm sure, but you didn't actually get hurt. There's no evidence that anyone wants to harm us, so I think as long as we respect their boundaries, we'll be fine."

Flynn nodded. "That makes sense. So, you're certain you didn't hear a thing?" He'd tried to pass off Yuri not hearing him as Yuri being downstairs and focusing on cooking, but Estelle had been right across the landing.

"No, I didn't." She shook her head. "I heard you come upstairs and then a few minutes later Yuri came up. I didn't hear anything."

"But I was pounding on the door and shouting as loud as I could."

"I don't know." She frowned. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right. I suppose we'll have to chalk it up to weird ghost powers."

"Probably. It's rather exciting, isn't it?"

'Exciting' wasn't the word Flynn would use, especially after his ordeal in the closet. "It's certainly intriguing."

* * *

 

Lucy was a sweet girl. She was six years old and could tell stories about the ships she'd watched off the cliff and the castles she'd built on the beach all day. It was obvious to Estelle that she was lonely, and playing with her reminded Estelle of how dearly she'd wished for a little sister when she was a child in the castle.

However, Estelle also wanted to sit in the kitchen with Flynn and Yuri and talk about grown-up things. It was Flynn's birthday, and she'd barely had a chance to speak to him at all. Yuri was in the process of baking a cake for Flynn, but when she suggested they go down to help, Lucy had thrown a tantrum until all the lights on the second floor flickered and doors slammed shut. She didn't want to spend the day with the boys and she cried if Estelle left her. Just separating long enough to eat lunch with the boys had ended in a series of slamming doors until Estelle finished eating and returned upstairs.

"Lucy, you need to calm down," Estelle said as the girl came out of one of her fits. The light in Estelle's bedroom came back on once Estelle agreed not to go downstairs at that moment. "You can't have a tantrum every time I leave your side."

"B-but I don't w-w-want you to go away." She rubbed her eyes and then grasped the skirt of Estelle's dress. Her hands didn't feel like normal human hands. They buzzed with energy, so it felt more like getting grabbed by a forcefield than a physical object. "I just want to play with you."

"I know." Estelle's stroked the back of Lucy's head, which had the same tingly energy as her grip. "But demanding I pay attention to you is very rude."

"Just for today." Lucy looked up pleadingly. "Play with me for today and tomorrow I won't bug you. I promise. Please?"

She was so lonely, Estelle thought. How long had it been since this little girl had a chance to play with anyone? Anyone would be desperate for interaction after being all alone in a house for over four years, and to a young child that was an eternity. Estelle remembered what it felt like to be a lonely little girl desperate for a companion, and her heart caved. "Ok, but only for today. Tomorrow you have to let me play with my other friends, too, ok?"

Lucy nodded vigorously. "Yes! I promise! Now let's play dress up with your princess dresses!"

"I don't think they'd fit you," Estelle said with a smile. Lucy reappeared in the closet and shuffled the dresses around. "You try them on and twirl around a lot, ok?"

"Ok, I can do that."

Estelle had brought her most casual dresses, but Lucy was enraptured with all of them. She sat on the bed and clapped as Estelle modelled them, cheering when she spun. Estelle wondered if she could have worn a potato sack, told her it was a special princess bag, and gotten the same reaction. It took about half an hour to go through all of them, and when she was done, Estelle sat on the floor with her green skirt pooling around her legs.

"That's all I brought, I'm afraid."

"You're so pretty, Estelle."

Estelle giggled. "Thank you. You're very pretty too, Lucy. I bet you could be a princess, too."

Lucy beamed, legs kicking the side of the bed. "Sometimes my daddy calls me princess."

Estelle thought for a moment. Slowly, she asked, "Lucy… do you know where your mommy and daddy are?"

Her legs stopped moving and she looked to the side. "Um… I…"

"It's ok if you don't know," she said gently.

"Well, I… Mommy isn't here anymore. She went away. I dunno where, but… she's not here. And Daddy is…"

"Is your father still in the house the way you are?"

Lucy chewed on her lips and then gave a tiny nod. "M-hm."

At least she had confirmation for her suspicion. "Is your Daddy a nice man?"

Lucy deliberated over her answer for a long time, and then said, "Every time Daddy came home from a trip, he brought me a present. And he'd rub my head and ask me if I was a good girl for Mommy. He tucked me in every night and read me stories, and he always checked under the bed for monsters. He let me ride on his back and pretend he was a horse and he made really good neighing sounds. One time a boy at school pushed me and Daddy yelled at his daddy until he apologized. Mommy said I couldn't eat candy after dinner but Daddy always snuck me treats he bought in town. I… I love my Daddy." By the time she was done, tears glistened in her eyes. She pulled her legs onto the bed and buried her face in them. Ghosts had no need to breath, but a habit from life drove her to gasp and sniffle with sobs.

"Oh, no." Estelle rushed to it on the side of the bed. "I'm sorry, Lucy, I shouldn't have asked." She wrapped her arm around the little ghost's shoulders, whispering soft consolations and rubbing her back.

"I love my Daddy," Lucy cried. "I do. I really do and Daddy loves me, too. And I love Mommy, too, even though she was mean sometimes. She always said she loved me even when she did things I didn't like."

"Yes, I'm sure he does." If his ghost was also in the house, there must be some reason he didn't play with her or make himself known. Estelle wasn't sure what the rules for being a ghost were, but perhaps it was easier for children to become ghosts and adults couldn't have as strong a presence? In that case, he was probably lurking in the house, more a lingering conscience than anything else, watching his daughter drift through the rooms alone. Estelle hugged Lucy tighter; every detail she learned about this house was sadder than the last. Some tragedy must have befallen the family, killing Mr. Caverly and Lucy, and leaving poor Mrs. Caverly a widow. Perhaps bringing her back to pacify her husband and daughter would put them at rest, but with the love letters gone, Estelle had no idea how they were supposed to find her.


	5. A Little Mad Sometimes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the topic of suicide comes up in this chapter, and continues to be relevant throughout the remaining chapters. If such topics bother you, please proceed with caution.

 

Steak sizzled in the pan on the stove. Yuri leaned against the counter, waiting to flip it. "So, it's been a fairly interesting birthday, I'd say."

Flynn sat at the island, chin resting in his palm. "Amazing. I've done nothing all day but lie around the house on vacation and it still has been the most confusing and interesting birthday I've ever had."

"Hey, I was thinking, do you want to switch rooms?"

Flynn raised his eyebrows. "What for?"

Yuri shrugged. "I thought sleeping next to that closet might freak you out."

Flynn shook his head. "No, that won't be necessary. I'd feel silly forcing you to switch rooms over something like a closet. Logically, there's nothing to be afraid of. I didn't even get hurt this morning. Nothing directly threatened me, but I just couldn't shake this crippling dread." He shuddered. "I'm not going to run away from a scary feeling. I'm probably not going to enter that closet again, but I don't think I need to leave the room entirely."

"Sure. Just thought I'd offer." Yuri grabbed the tongs and flipped the steaks over to renewed sizzling. Just thinking about what Flynn had described made his skin crawl. Few things freaked him out more than being trapped in a small, enclosed space. The idea of having walls pressing in on all sides, no way to escape, no way to fight back, and no way to even see what was happening elicited a primal dread. He tried to push such horrifying thoughts out of his mind. "When we get back to town, we should have a talk with Mr. Yates. He might want to reconsider renting this property."

"He could make it part of the advertising. 'Beautiful scenery and a genuine haunting.' There are people crazy enough to think that's a selling point."

"That feels kind of scummy if you ask me." Yuri gave the pot of mashed potatoes a stir. "A little girl died here. Capitalizing on that, using her death to make money…"

"I know." Flynn nodded. "I agree with you."

"I still have to wonder what happened here. A little girl and possibly her father are dead. What killed them? An accident? If Mrs. Caverly is the only one who survived, that might be a bit suspicious."

Flynn lowered his hand. "You don't think she murdered her own daughter and husband? Why would a mother do such a thing?"

Yuri shook his head. "I don't know. I'm just throwing out ideas. If she is a sad widow alone somewhere, I don't want to accuse her of things with no grounding."

A few minutes later, the steaks were done and Yuri set about serving dinner. "Hey, set the table will you and I'll grab Estelle."

"Sure thing."

Upstairs, Yuri knocked on Estelle's door and then stepped in. "Yo. Dinner's ready."

"I can't wait," she said as she stood up. "It smells delicious."

"No, stay with me!" Lucy grabbed her hand and gave her a pleading look.

"Lucy, I'm hungry. It's time to eat dinner."

"Can you eat your dinner with me?"

Estelle was amazing at holding in her frustration. "No, I want to eat dinner with my friends."

"But…" Lucy's lip quivered.

"You can come too, if you want," Yuri suggested. He leaned on the door with his arms crossed. "I didn't make anything for you because I didn't think ghosts eat, but you can sit at the table with us."

Lucy looked hesitantly between Yuri and Estelle. "Well… ok."

She vanished, but a second later, Yuri heard Flynn say, "Oh!" and guessed where she'd reappeared.

"Is everything ok?" Yuri asked before going down.

Estelle nodded. "Yes. Don't worry about me; Lucy is harmless. She also confirmed that the other spirit in this house, the one that frightened Flynn this morning, is her father."

"Figured as much. Flynn and I are worried about you. I know the kid's lonely, but her obsession with you seems kinda unhealthy."

Estelle frowned and nodded. "Yes, I know what you mean. She promised that this would only be for today, though. If she's still acting like this tomorrow, I'll give her a talk."

"Ok. And let us know if you're at all concerned."

"I will." Estelle smiled and left the room. "Don't worry, if I think there's anything dangerous in this house, you two will be the first to know."

She followed him downstairs, where they found Flynn sitting silently at the dinner table with Lucy. Lucy kept giving him nervous looks, while Flynn smiled in relief when the others arrived. Estelle sat next to Lucy, while Yuri grabbed a loaf of bread from the counter. There was a block of knives by the sink, so he grabbed the big one and hoped for a bread knife. Instead he pulled out a carving knife with slightly curving blade as long as his forearm. It was wickedly sharp, but not useful for cutting bread so he tried again. This time he managed to get the serrated bread knife, cut a few slices, and brought them to the table.

Before they started eating, Yuri and Estelle held out their glasses. "To Flynn," Estelle said, smiling. "May you have many more birthdays to come."

Yuri grinned as all three glasses chinked. "And hopefully in the next twenty-five years, you'll learn how to not be such a stuck-up loser."

"Thanks, Yuri. You're too kind." Flynn drank and then dug into dinner.

It was hard to fully relax during dinner with Lucy sitting next to Estelle. They tried to involve her, but she was reticent to answer any question that wasn't from Estelle and spent most of the evening sulking with her arms crossed. Yuri was desperate to get more information out of her, but directly asking her how she died probably wouldn't go very far. Unnerving ghost child aside, it was a pleasant meal. Most importantly, Flynn seemed to enjoy it. Growing up, they'd never been able to afford to do anything special for birthdays, so Yuri enjoyed being able to cook a fancy meal for him. Flynn's childish smile lit up by candles as the cake was presented was enough to make Yuri think this whole trip had been worth it, ghosts or no.

The sun was down by the time dinner ended, but the conversation still had a ways to go. Lucy, however, didn't seem to see any merit in lengthy grown-up talking.

"Estelle," she hissed tugging on her arm. "Dinner's over, it's time to go play."

"Not now, Lucy." She turned back to Flynn. "That isn't what Yuri told me. He said he doesn't like cats around because they scratch and pee on things."

Flynn laughed. "He told you that?"

"It's true!" Yuri insisted. He needed to move this conversation along before Estelle learned things she shouldn't. "Flynn, what were you saying about-"

"Yuri's allergic to cats," Flynn said.

"Esteeeelle," Lucy begged. "Come on, let's goooo."

"I said not now." Estelle gave her a stern look. "I'm talking to Flynn and Yuri right now. Yuri, are you actually allergic to cats?"

Yuri scowled and swigged the last of his drink. "Only a bit."

"Sure, 'only a bit'," Flynn said with a smirk. "When we were fourteen he brought a cat home. You should have seen him with that thing - cuddling it as much as it would let him, rubbing his face against it, letting it nap on him. He'd coo to it like a baby."

"You're exaggerating." Yuri crossed his arms and looked away, pink tinging his cheeks.

Estelle giggled. "That's so sweet, Yuri. So why do you say you don't like cats?"

"Because it turns out he's horribly allergic to them. A day after bringing the cat home, he broke out in these awful hives, his eyes were so teary and puffy he could hardly see, and he sneezed like the worst cold in a century. Obviously, the cat had to go. We gave it to a friend and Yuri proclaimed he didn't like cats anyway. He's tried to stick to that story ever since, but really he just knows that if he gets near a cat he'll have to decide between petting it and being able to breathe, and he doesn't want to have to make that decision. Probably because he knows he'll pick petting it and suffer later."

"Awww, I'm sorry, Yuri. That's such a tragic story."

"A completely false story," Yuri grumbled. "Dogs are better anyway."

"Cats are boring." Lucy kept tugging on Estelle. "We should go now, Estelle. I want to play."

Estelle glanced over her shoulder at the black windows. "It's already pretty late, Lucy. I think it's time for you to go to bed."

"I don't wanna!"

"It is past your bedtime and I'm going to sit up for a while with my friends. You need to go rest now."

Yuri didn't know if ghosts even needed sleep, but he gave Estelle credit for trying.

"No!" Silverware rattled as her voice rose. "I don't wanna go to bed! We need to play more!"

The caring tone in Estelle's voice began to turn stern. "You need to settle down. It is time for bed."

"No, no, no!" Lucy jumped up, standing on her chair. "You can't make me!" Shadows morphed as the overhead light began to sway.

Estelle got to her feet as well. In the most commanding voice she could muster, she said, "It's bedtime and you need to lie down for the night."

"NO!" she screamed, a piercing wail that covered up her stamping feet. The light spun in circles, dishes trembled, and a chorus of bangs signalled every door in the house slamming shut. Flynn gave Yuri a nervous look as flecks of plaster rained from the ceiling and windows rattled in their frames. Yuri grabbed Flynn's arm and dragged him under the table, just in case they were going to shatter.

He was reaching for Estelle to pull her under cover when she spoke again. Estelle stood with her hands on her hips, as tall and firm as she could, and then pointed one finger at the stairs and shouted, "Go to your room!"

Lucy's scream was so enraged Yuri could feel energy vibrating through the room. He clapped his hands over his ears as the entire house shook. A sudden burst of light almost blinded him and a split second later the room plunged into darkness and silence. After so much activity, it took a moment for Yuri to get his wits together after it stopped so suddenly.

Estelle spoke first. "Is everyone ok?"

Flynn and Yuri emerged from under the table. "We're fine, Estellise. You are also unharmed, correct?"

"Yes, I'm fine. I'm so sorry; I didn't know she'd react like that."

Yuri's eyes still hadn't adjusted to the sudden darkness. He could still see streaks of fuzzy purple and red when he looked around. "Did she shatter the bulbs or just turn them off?"

"I didn't hear anything crack." Flynn's outline, faintly visible in the moonlight, patted the table. "I don't feel any broken glass, either."

"I'll get the lights." Yuri heard a thump as Estelle bumped into a chair, but she managed to reach the switch. After a few seconds, nothing happened. "Um… I'm flipping the switch, but nothing is happening."

"Crap. Is the power out?" By now Yuri was beginning to be able to see. Enough moonlight made it through the huge windows of the sunroom to see by.

"If none of the bulbs are broken and all of the switches are on, it would be the only explanation." Flynn left the table and headed to the pantry. It was too dark to see inside, but they'd left the lantern right by the door so he could grab it easily without stepping in. "I'm going to check the generator."

"I'm going with you."

Estelle hurried toward them. "Me, too."

Together, they left through the back door and then rounded the house. The generator was a clunky metal thing attached to the side of the house near the bricks of the fireplace. Yuri wasn't sure exactly how it worked, but it had a dinged metal cannister full of gasoline and a lot of snakey tubes. The only thing he knew for sure was that the gasoline was supposed to be  _in_  the cannister, not spilled all over the grass. The tank itself was dented and the tubes and wires had come unconnected from the house.

"It looks like it imploded," Flynn said, holding the lantern up enough so they could see.

"Is there any way to fix it?" Estelle asked, stepping closer to examine it.

Yuri's nose wrinkled from the spilled gas. "Probably, but I don't know how to do it. Poking around with gas and electricity when you have no idea what you're doing sounds pretty dangerous."

"The machine itself is broken," Flynn said. "The whole tank will need to be replaced."

Estelle leaned against the house and sighed. "We'll have to walk into town tomorrow and get someone to fix it. We don't need power tonight, do we?"

"I think we can manage with candles," Yuri said. "We never had electricity in the past, so I'm sure we can manage now."

"The hot water comes from a gas-powered heater," Flynn said. "So we'll still have that for showering and such."

"Ok, good. I'm really sorry about this."

"It's not your fault, Estelle." They turned around to head back inside. "It was good to put your foot down before letting Lucy walk all over you."

"I just hope she's ok."

Yuri was more worried about pissing off a ghost and turning her violent, but trust Estelle to be worried about the ghost's feelings. On the porch, Estelle stopped and looked up at the rafters. "Something wrong?" Yuri asked.

"No… I heard something creaking out here last night and was trying to figure out what it was."

"Creaking?" Flynn asked. "Like the bench?"

"That's what I originally thought, but I realized the bench has a slightly different sound to it. At least, I think it does. Maybe I was imagining things."

"I'll keep my ears peeled," Yuri said. "Maybe it's just…" His eyes darted around the porch, trying to find anything that could make a creaking noise other than the bench. "Uh…"

Estelle frowned. "Yeah…"

* * *

 

With no electricity, Yuri built a fire in the living room while Flynn and Estelle made hot chocolate. It was actually cozy with the lights off. Yuri stretched out on the couch while Flynn and Estelle got comfortable in squishy armchairs, and the crackling warmth of the fire made every unnerving event in the house fade away. Maybe tomorrow night they could try roasting hot dogs and marshmallows in the fire. The hearth was obviously large enough for it, and based on the faint odour of grease, the Caverlys must have used it to cook sometimes. Estelle closed her eyes and took a deep breath, imagining bacon crackling over an open blaze.

"We should head to bed." Flynn's voice broke the silence. They'd all drifted into sleepy thoughts, and the fire was beginning to die. It would be dangerous to leave it unchecked overnight, so Yuri dragged himself from the couch and prepared to put it out.

Estelle stretched her arms and yawned. "I'm gong to take a shower before bed. Do either of you want to use the bathroom first?"

"No, go ahead." Flynn hadn't yet found the nerve to leave his chair.

"Ok." Estelle stepped over to Flynn before going upstairs. "I hope you had a good birthday."

"It was one of my best, Estellise. Thank you."

She gave him a hug and then waved goodnight to the boys. Before going upstairs, she lit a candle in the kitchen and used it to light her way. The house felt cold away from the fire. Uncertainty overcame her as she walked up the stairs. She remembered how dark and threatening the landing had been last night, and her grip tightened around the candlestick holder. The flame was just a tiny blip of light in the house's darkness, but it was enough to soothe her. In her room, she glanced around to see if Lucy was around, but it was empty. Hopefully she had gone… wherever ghosts went. She wasn't actually sure where ghosts went if they weren't actively manifesting. To the afterlife? Or somewhere in between? Wherever it was, Lucy had gone there, so Estelle undressed in peace and then walked to the bathroom wrapped in a towel.

The warmth of the water replaced the warmth of the fire. The moonlight streaming through the small window was enough to make the taps gleam, but she left the candle on the counter so she actually see the shampoo bottle. She didn't want to take too long, just in case Flynn or Yuri wanted to use the upstairs bathroom before bed, but it had been a long and interesting day and the hot water flowing over her shoulders felt serene.

They were going to have to find Karina Caverly, of course. Estelle would do whatever she could to help Lucy and her father move on. Lucy's obsessive clinging to her today proved just how starved that little girl was for affection, and Estelle could not in good conscience go home from vacation and forget about her. Her father, Bram, must also be in a lot of pain. He'd frightened Flynn so deeply this morning just to protect his letters, but if a father was trapped in a house, unable to provide support to his miserable daughter, it was no wonder he was in a foul mood. Hopefully once they tracked down Karina, she could come to the house and put both of them to rest.

After washing her hair, Estelle stood under the shower for a long minute. Some of the things that had happened here were scary, but she truly believed Lucy and Bram meant no harm. Despite his frightening morning, Flynn had ended up having a wonderful birthday, so all in all it had been a successful trip.

The bathroom door clicked. Estelle glanced in that direction, and then she heard a tiny  _thunk_ as the handle bumped the wall.

"Oh! I'm still in here, sorry!"

The door swung shut, and she imagined Flynn backing away with red cheeks, too mortified at almost walking in on her naked to even apologize. She smiled, and the shivered as the room suddenly felt quite chilly. She repositioned herself under the water, trying to angle the stream just right to cover as much of her body in warm water as possible. Maybe if she -

Did she just hear a breath? Estelle froze and held her breath. It was hard to hear anything over the drone of water crashing around her, but she could have sworn she heard an inhale of breath. Just as she let her muscles un-tense, it came again.

"Yuri?" The question came slow and soft. "Flynn?" She was  _certain_  she'd heard someone breathing a few feet away, just inside the door. Estelle wrapped her arms around her chest. "Um, if you guys need something, I'll be out in a minute." In her heart, Estelle knew that it wasn't Flynn or Yuri but she wasn't quite ready to believe it yet.

Footsteps. The breath getting closer. A man's shadow slid into view through the shower curtain. Estelle pressed her back against the wet tiles. Her mind raced to find an escape route, but with him standing just outside the bathtub, she was trapped. The water no longer felt soothing; it splashed against her face and dripped into her eyes. She wanted to move out of the spray, but her knees were locked by the sight of the person lurking on the other side of the flimsy curtain.

He wasn't moving. What was he doing? Her skin crawled as she wondered just how clearly he could see her through the white sheet. Surely the room was too dark to see anything clearly without a candle as a backlight. What did he  _want_?

Then his arm rose, and she saw that he held something in his hand. Her chest throbbed just as the candle blipped out and plunged the room into darkness. Estelle moved within seconds, because even though she could no longer see, the last image had burned into her brain: he was carrying a knife.

The blade swished through the curtain. The rings jangled on the rod and Estelle slipped on the wet porcelain. She banged her knees on the floor of the tub just as the blade screeched against the back tiles. The curtain rippled as the knife slashed through it again and Estelle let out a scream. A section of ripped curtain fell on her back and she struggled to get back to her feet without slipping. She gasped for breath and choked on water, and then more of the curtain fell on her.

Something banged against the door. "Estelle?!" Yuri's voice. "Estelle, are you ok?!"

She heard the knife coming again and dove to the side, but not fast enough. Pain lanced through her shoulder as it slid across her upper arm. She screamed again as the shock of pain made her slip again. Her breath came in short gasps. She couldn't fight - not like this! Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the faint light, but being able to see the glint of the knife as it swept through the darkness didn't do her much good when she was tangled in the curtain and trapped in a slippery tub.

The door smashed against the wall and lantern light flooded the room. The knife clattered on the ground and footsteps stomped toward her.

"Estelle!"

"Estellise! What happened? Are you hurt?"

"What's going on?"

One of them turned the shower off, and in the sudden silence she could hear just how loud her breathing and heart beat was. Blood rushed in her ears and her whole body trembled.

Yuri crouched beside the tub and his eyes darted over her. Estelle was thankful now for the curtain falling on her, but Yuri's eyes landed on her shoulder. "You're bleeding."

Estelle cast First Aid on herself while Flynn stood back with the lantern and examined the room. He crouched and picked up a knife from the floor. It was the carving knife from the kitchen, and though the water had washed most of the blood away, it still had a few streaks of watery blood on the gleaming blade. "What happened?"

"I think it was Bram Caverly," she said softly. Yuri grabbed her towel from the counter and gently wrapped it around her shoulders. She pulled it tight and Yuri tugged the shower curtain out from under it. "He attacked me. I don't know why."

Yuri took her arm and helped her stand. She carefully stepped out of the tub and shivered from her wet legs. Before she could stop herself, her pressed herself against Yuri's chest and let him hug her. Her body still trembled from the shock of nearly dying only minutes ago. She was wet, cold, and frightened, and clinging to the warm body of a friend dispelled the shadows still lurking around the tub. Yuri didn't seem to mind that she was getting him wet and silently held her until she stopped shaking.

"I think I might have an idea what his motivation was," Flynn said grimly.

Estelle turned her head, still pressing against Yuri. Flynn shone the lantern on the mirror across from the tub. The reflections were hazy because it was fogged over, but her nervous eyes reflected back in the streaks a finger had traced through it.

_STAY AWAY FROM MY DAUGHTER_

* * *

 

"We're leaving," Yuri said about fifteen minutes later. They sat in a circle on Flynn's bed, surrounded by candles and the lantern to brighten the room. Estelle assured them she was fine now that the initial shock had worn off, but both Flynn and Yuri were on edge. Yuri still remembered the heart attack he'd had when he suddenly heard Estelle screaming from the bathroom.

Flynn nodded. "I agree. We can no longer say that the spirits here don't mean us any harm."

"You're probably right." Estelle hugged herself. "I just feel bad for Lucy."

In her short-sleeved nightgown, Yuri could see the mark on her upper arm where she'd been slashed. Just thinking of the blood swirling into the drain and smearing the white shower curtain made him angry. Leave it to Estelle to worry more about the ghost than herself even after she'd nearly been killed. "We can look for Karina after we leave and let her deal with her family."

"We can't leave tonight, though," Flynn said. "It's a long walk back to town and there are monsters on the way. It's too dangerous to make at night, so we should set out first thing tomorrow morning."

"Your room has a double bed, right, Estelle?"

She nodded. "Yes, why?"

"If you want, I could sleep in your room with you tonight. I'm worried whether you'll be safe on your own."

"My bed is bigger." Flynn spread his hands on the king-sized bed. "You should sleep in here with me, Estellise."

Flynn must be worried sick if he was offering to share a bed with her, but Yuri couldn't blame him for his worries. He shuddered to think what might have happened if they hadn't gotten to her in time. She was lucky to have only a mild injury.

"Thank you for the offer, but I think I'll be ok."

"Are you sure?" Flynn said. "I'm not doubting your ability to defend yourself, but there's already been an attack on your life."

"Please don't worry about me. He already sent me his message about staying away from Lucy. I don't think he'll attack me again unless I don't listen."

"So you hope," Yuri said. "Who knows how ghost logic works?"

"Make sure you call us at any sign of danger."

"Ok, Flynn. I promise." She smiled at him, and Yuri found it funny that she was trying to comfort him when Flynn's goal had been to comfort her.

Yuri was about to suggest turning in for the night when someone said, "You're leaving?" All three heads turned to the corner of the room, where Lucy had appeared and stared at them with wide eyes.

Estelle nodded with a sad smile. "Yes, Lucy, I'm sorry, but we have to go. Your daddy doesn't want us to stay."

"But… but… no. You can't go! We were going to play together!"

Estelle slid her legs off the bed and folded her hands in her lap. "I know, but your daddy says we need to go and we need to listen to him. Don't you listen to your daddy?"

Her lip quivered. "Don't go! You - you can't leave me here. You have to stay!"

"No, Lucy," Estelle said firmly. "We're leaving and throwing a tantrum isn't going to change that."

Her lungs swelled as she took in a deep breath, and Yuri braced himself for another scream. Thankfully, it didn't come. Instead, she shot an angry glare at Yuri and Flynn and vanished.

"That went better than expected," Yuri said.

"Yes." Estelle turned back to them. "I think I just need to put my foot down. She's been all alone for a few years so I think she needs someone to give her boundaries like a parent would." She rose from the bed and picked up a candle. "I'm going to bed now. I think I've had enough excitement for tonight."

"Sleep well," Flynn said as she left. "You heading to bed, too, Yuri?"

"Yeah. He grabbed a candle as he stood. "Well, this is certainly a birthday you won't ever forget."

Flynn smiled grimly. "It is indeed. Goodnight."

Yuri gave the open door to the bathroom a dark look as he crossed the landing. He imagined what scene he and Flynn might have found if they arrived only a minute later and his stomach turned. Bram Caverly might be a sad, lonely man but nothing could excuse what he'd done to Estelle and Yuri had as much pity for him as he did for Cumore.

He opened the door to his own room, but then he paused. Worry about Estelle had his mind racing and jumping to see ghosts around every corner, so he was  _probably_  overreacting about that lump lying in his bed. He'd never taken much care to straighten his sheets upon waking, so that was surely a messy heap of blanket that only looked vaguely humanoid due to the shaky candle light. Perhaps he should ask Flynn to check it out with him, but he'd feel silly asking Flynn to check for monsters on his bed.

Yuri carefully sidestepped to his closet, never taking his eyes off the bed. When they'd heard Estelle scream, he and Flynn had charged to the bathroom without bothering to pick up their swords first, so his was still put away. With his back so close to the opposite wall, it was hard for the candle's light to illuminate the bed. All he saw was a vague outline and some patches of navy blue blanket. It hadn't moved since he stepped in, but was that because it was just a blanket, or because it was waiting? He wouldn't be so nervous about a silly lump on his bed if he could shake that prickly feeling of not being alone.

His hand slid to the closet door and slid it open. He didn't take his eyes off the bed as he pulled his sword out, and then he took steady steps toward the bed. If there was a ghost, he would stab it. Even if it didn't hurt, it would at least startle it. He held his breath as he approached the bed. His muscles tensed with anticipation. He was ready to bolt from the room at a second's notice. The light flickered as the candle shook from how tightly he gripped it, and he slowly extended the sword.

It pressed into soft folds of fabric. Yuri experimentally poked another section and had similar results. He slid the blade under and tossed the whole messy pile against the wall, confirming that his bed was, in fact, empty and he was, in fact, over-reacting. Yuri shook his head at his own paranoia and set the sword by the bed and the candle on the nightstand. It was a good thing he hadn't summoned Flynn, he thought as he leaned against the side of the bed and straightened the blanket. Flynn would never let him live this down.

And then icy hands gripped his ankles.

* * *

 

Estelle had just settled into bed when she heard the scream. For a second she had no idea who it was, because she'd never heard Yuri scream like that before. The agonized wail pierced straight through her heart and she was bolting out the door by the time she came to her senses. She nearly crashed into Flynn at Yuri's door. They didn't stop to talk - there was no time. Flynn yanked the doorknob, but it wouldn't budge.

"Come on…" Flynn grunted and smashed his fist into the door.

A long groan came through the door and Estelle clasped her hands together while shifting from foot to foot. "Hurry, Flynn."

"I'm trying!" He stepped back and gave the door a solid kick, but though the wood creaked, it didn't open.

Then Estelle heard sounds her mind struggled not to put images to: cracks and gurgles, a muffled scream, something that could only be described as a squelch. Every groan and creak sparked new waves of horror and she pressed her balled fists against her mouth. She tried to focus on the banging as Flynn used every scrap of strength available to beat down the door. She didn't even know what they were going to do when it opened, because anything that could elicit such awful noises from Yuri must be nearly impossible to fight.

She heard a shuffling, something crunch, and then silence. The only noise now was Flynn's frantic pounding and her own blood rushing in her ears. Flynn smashed the door, and this time it swung open so quickly he stumbled into the room and fell to his knees while the door crashed into the wall. Estelle hurried after him, but the room was so dark she could barely see. "Yuri? Yuri?!" Moonlight drifted through the window, but not bright enough to see well. She had to rely on her other senses, which in this case meant concentrating on the thick, coppery scent hanging in the air.

"I'll get the lantern," Flynn said slowly.

He left Estelle alone with her drumming heart and shaking hands. Whatever had happened to Yuri, he wasn't conscious enough to respond… or alive.  _No, don't think that_. "Yuri?" Her voice was soft and hesitant, fearing the answer. She needed to know what had happened, but the prospect of getting bad news made her heart tremor. She swallowed a lump in her throat and stepped toward the bed, where the scent of blood was thickest. She imagined Bram standing over the bed with the knife, stabbing down while Yuri struggled to escape the disadvantaged position.

Her foot landed in something slick. She froze up, eyes locked on the empty bed. Now that she was close enough, she could tell the bed was empty of anything but a pile of blankets. Instead, her joints creaked with how slowly she crouched. Her knees protested, trying to convince her not to keep bending down because she wasn't going to like what she found. Breath coming in shaking gasps, her fingers reached into the darkness.

Liquid. On one hand, she'd been half-certain she was going to put her hand down on a cooling corpse, so warm blood was a relief. On the other… sticky blood clung to her fingertips and there was no question whose it was. Moonlight glistened in the dark pool soaking into the wood floors. If there was blood here, Yuri must be nearby. Surely if he'd spilled so much blood, he couldn't possibly move far. The area around the bed was empty, so her eyes turned to the pitch darkness lurking under the bed. She raised a shaking hand to reach under and discover what laid beneath.

Light bathed the room. Estelle yanked her hand back and saw Flynn standing in the doorway with the lantern, face grim. "Well?" he asked tightly.

Estelle looked back under the bed. With light spilling from the lantern and across the floor, she could see all the way to the dusty corner under the bed. Blood smeared across the floor, like something had been dragged under the bed. There was no sign of where that something might be now. She slowly stood up, holding her bloodied fingers way from the bed. She shook her head and whispered, "He isn't here."

"He has to be." Flynn checked the closet, behind the chair, and held the light high to see into every corner of the room. "Even if he was… hurt," Flynn couldn't bring himself to suggest Yuri might be dead, "he'd still be somewhere in here."

Despite all logic saying bodies couldn't simply vanish, the fact remained that Yuri was nowhere to be seen. The darkness of the room had swallowed him up and left nothing but a few strands of dark hair clinging to the bed frame with blood as glue.

"You'll stay now, right?" Lucy stood in the doorway, watching carefully.

"Lucy…" Estelle didn't want to think Lucy had been involved in this. Such a horrible act could only have been committed by Bram. "Do you know where Yuri is?"

Lucy crossed her arms. "I hid him. You can have him back after you play with me, ok?"

Estelle looked to Flynn with horror, and then back to Lucy. "You… hid him? Where did you hide him?"

"If I tell you then he won't be hidden, duh!"

Estelle walked across the room and kneeled in front of her. "This isn't a game, Lucy. I think you really hurt Yuri, and you need to tell us where he is so we can help him."

She stuck out her lip and shook her head. "No! Not 'til you play with me."

"It may be best to agree with her for now," Flynn said softly.

Estelle sighed and tried not to picture the blood under the bed. "Ok… ok, I'll play with you all day tomorrow. But after that, you have to  _promise_  to give Yuri back, ok?"

Lucy nodded and then threw her arms around Estelle in a hug. "Yes! We'll have fun  _all_  day! Hooray!"

She vanished, and Estelle returned to Flynn's side. His hand was still holding the lantern, so he could only hug her with one arm when she fell against him. "Oh, Flynn, I'm so sorry. We should have left as soon as we suspected a break-in. I honestly didn't think Lucy was dangerous, but…"

"It's ok. Any one of us could have demanded we leave, but we didn't. We're in this together, and no one is at fault."

Except she  _was_  the one most responsible, because she'd picked this awful house for their vacation. The advertisement hadn't said anything about ghosts! Now Yuri was in trouble, and they had no idea where he was. Based on the blood and the sounds they'd heard, he must be in horrible pain somewhere. Lucy assured them she'd return him, but she was just a little girl. She may not realize the consequences of her actions, and there was a real chance Yuri might already be dead wherever she'd put him. On top of that, they still had to worry about Bram. Their lives were in danger if they got too close to Lucy against his wishes, but they were also in danger if they stayed away from her and made her take it out on Yuri. She didn't know what to do, but her best friends' lives were in danger and it was all her fault.

"Flynn, I… I think I'll take you up on that offer to sleep in your bed tonight."

"Of course," he said softly.

Estelle went to her room first to fetch her own pillow. She grabbed it off the bed, but before leaving found herself pressing her face into it and letting out a soft, smothered cry. She couldn't get the image of blood-slick floors out of her head.  _Yuri_. She couldn't help feeling guilty; it had been her idea to come here, after all. If only this awful vacation could be a nightmare and they could all wake up safe and sound in Zaphias.

She pulled the pillow away from her face and took a deep breath.  _I have to be strong_. When she'd gone missing, Yuri hadn't cried into a pillow and felt sorry for himself - he'd done everything he could to bring her home safely. He didn't lose hope even when she herself had lost hope. Now, it was her turn to return the favour. They may not know where Yuri was, but she had to keep her chin up and do whatever she could to bring him home.

In the silence of her room, the familiar creaking from outside came to her attention. Her eyes darted to her window, and Estelle strode over to it. What  _was_  that sound? It gave her the chills just listening to it. Last night she'd chickened out from going to investigate, but tonight she was filled with a fiery purpose. If it had something to do with the ghosts in this house, then maybe it would lead them to Yuri.

She marched across the landing to Flynn's room, where he was pulling the covers down on the bed. "Flynn." She tossed her pillow on the bed. "I'm going to investigate the creaking outside. Do you want to come with me?"

"Yes." He grabbed his sword and followed her to the stairs. 

Flynn carried the lantern, which cast long shadows across the furniture in the living room. The creaking was louder down here, and Estelle was certain it was coming from the back porch. She silently motioned to Flynn and the pair of them crept across the living room. The fireplace still gave off a warm, smoky scent but their cozy evening around the fire felt so far away now.

_Creeeeak… creeeeeak…_

By the time they reached the back door, the sound was so near she knew they should be able to see the source by now. The cool summer air gave her little comfort as they stepped out onto the porch. Crickets chirped in the grass and waves crashed against the rocks, but neither of those sounds drowned out the creaking. It seemed to be all around them now, but the only movement Estelle could see was the moon reflecting on distant waves. Estelle stepped to the middle of the porch in confusion. This close, she was able to identify the source of the creaking. It sounded like a heavy weight swaying on the end of a rope, but there were no trees around to hang something from and the porch was empty. "There's nothing here." She turned around and gasped.

Silhouetted against the wall of the house was the shadow of a man dangling from a noose. He drifted back and forth with a rhythmic creaking like a macabre pendulum. Estelle's eyes shot to the rafters, but the beams above her head were empty.

"What is it?" Flynn stepped away from the door to look and his breath halted.

For a long minute, Estelle and Flynn could do nothing but stare at the shadow of the hanging man. The gentle swaying was hypnotic. When Flynn finally pulled himself away, he held up the lantern so its light spilled across the grass toward the cliff.

"There's nothing here," he murmured, as if he expected a sudden tree to appear in the field with a physical hanging corpse.

"I think…" Estelle trailed her fingers across the shadow, picking up nothing but grime from the old wooden siding. "I think this is what happened to Bram."

Flynn turned back around and the light shining directly on the shadow caused it to fade. "That would be my guess. Do you he suppose he killed himself out of grief after Lucy died?"

"Probably." She still remembered her terror when Bram assaulted her in the bathroom, but that didn't stop her from feeling pity for the man. The grief of his daughter's passing must have affected him acutely. She didn't know how ghosts worked and it was possible that the entirety of his personality wasn't represented by his ghostly self. If he died in a state of grief and mental instability, perhaps that was why his ghostly self was so vitriolic.

"Let's go," Flynn said. "I don't like standing out here."

Estelle nodded. "It's… creepy."

It was a relief to have an answer to the ominous creaking, but Estelle couldn't get the image of the hanging silhouette out of her head all the way upstairs. The bed was cozily large. Flynn stayed as close to the edge as was physically possible before gravity would take over and make him fall, no matter how many times Estelle insisted she wasn't shy and it was ok to split the bed evenly. In fact, she wanted him close. Flynn was under the impression she wanted to sleep close to him because she was frightened and wanted protection, but while she was scared, it wasn't for her own safety. She'd lost one of her best friends tonight, and only being able to feel the presence of her other best friend, assuring her he was still whole and all right, let her fall asleep at all.


	6. The Lambs Were Screaming

Estelle woke up with eyes in front of her face. She gasped and jolted backward. "Lucy! Don't do that!"

Flynn snapped awake at her movement and bolted up. "What's wrong?"

"I'm fine." Estelle sat up and rubbed her eyes.

Lucy stood by the side of the bed, smiling at her. "Can we play now?"

Estelle sighed. "Lucy… you need to give me time to wake up."

"Oooookaaaaay." She scuffed her feet and fiddled her hands.

Flynn tapped her shoulder, and she leaned over while Lucy was looking out the window. In her ear, he whispered, "Try to negotiate Yuri's release."

She nodded and turned back to Lucy, who was now tracing the pattern on the comforter with her finger. "Lucy, I would be happy to play with you, but you have to give Yuri back first."

Her head snapped up. "That's not what you said last night. Last night we said I'd give him back tomorrow if you play today."

"And now I'm saying that if you want to play today, you have to give him back right now."

Lucy bristled as the dead lamps by the bed rattled. "You play  _first_! Or - or I'll hide the other one, too!"

She turned her furious gaze on Flynn, and Estelle threw out her arm and leaned in front of him. "No! You leave Flynn alone!"

"Then play now!"

Flynn started to say, "I'll be fi-"

"Ok," Estelle said. They'd already lost Yuri and there was no way she was going to let any harm come to Flynn, too. "But you gave to let me eat breakfast first."

The lamps ceased rattling as a cheerful grin took over Lucy's face. "Yay! I'll meet you downstairs!"

"You shouldn't keep caving to her demands," Flynn said after she turned to him. "She's learning that bossing you around works."

"I know." Estelle hung her head. "I've heard that the best thing to do when a child has a tantrum is to let them yell and refuse to acknowledge them or try to pacify them, but I couldn't stand to let her take her tantrum out on you." She leaned over and hugged him. "I don't want you to get hurt, too."

"Don't worry about me. I'm more worried about you. Bram doesn't want you near his daughter, and spending another day playing with her is just asking for his wrath."

"But what am I supposed to do? If I  _don't_  spend the day playing with her, she'll hurt you and Yuri."

"I don't know. It's a tricky situation. We need to get out of this house, but we can't leave without Yuri."

Estelle pulled away from the hug. "Finding Yuri is our top priority. I'll keep Lucy entertained and out of the way, and you search the house for him. He might still be here, right? Maybe he's… I don't know, under the floorboards or something."

Flynn gave a tight nod. "Now that it's daylight, I'll give his room a thorough search. Just keep Lucy out of my way and maybe all three of us can be out of here by tonight."

Estelle cooked eggs for breakfast, but it was hard to appreciate them with Lucy hovering around. She and Flynn ate silently, trying not to stare too long at the empty chair where Yuri ought to be. When they were done, Lucy grabbed Estelle's hand and pulled.

"Now we can play, right?"

"Yes," Estelle said, glancing at Flynn. They hadn't seen or heard anything from Bram since last night, but as they'd earned from Lucy, ghosts could pop up anywhere at any time. "Lucy, I don't think your daddy wants you playing with me. Do you know if there's a place we can go where he won't find us?"

"Uh… yeah! This way, come on!" She tugged again, and Estelle gave Flynn a reassuring smile and then let herself be dragged to the back door.

Lucy led Estelle onto the back porch and then twirled around. "We can play out here! Daddy never comes here. He doesn't like it."

Estelle could easily guess why Bram would avoid the site of his death, especially considering Lucy was similarly opposed to entering the front sitting room. Lucy plopped onto the worn wooden porch and said, "Sit down, I'll show you how to play the clapping game."

Estelle sat cross from her and let Lucy guide her through a simple rhythm of clapping on her knees and clapping their hands together, along with a a little rhyme about a sailor going to see. It was the sort of game Estelle had played as a little girl, and playing it now brought back a lot of memories. She would have been able to enjoy them so much more if she wasn't so worried about Yuri.

* * *

Flynn cleaned up the plates from breakfast. He watched Estelle and Lucy run off to the porch, unable to stop himself from frowning. It had been one thing to let Estelle run off with Yuri all those years ago, and he'd worried sick about her even then. Letting her run off with a potentially violent ghost was even worse.

After tidying the kitchen, Flynn walked upstairs to Yuri's room. When he entered, he stood still for a moment and took a deep breath. Dried blood hit his nose, mixed with dust and old wallpaper glue. People couldn't just vanish into thin air. Yuri had to be  _somewhere_. He walked across the room slowly, coming to a stop near the blood by the bed. By now it had dried, leaving a dark brown stain on the floorboards. The blood smeared under the bed, looking like something had been dragged. He'd start his search there.

The bed screeched as Flynn dragged it away from the wall and he slowed down so as not to make a ruckus. Then he paused and thought,  _why do I care if I make noise?_  Estelle and Lucy were outside, so it wasn't as if there was anyone to worry about annoying. Perhaps it was because he lived in the castle, and was accustomed to knowing there were always plenty of people around. He just wasn't used to being alone in a house, and that was why he couldn't shake the feeling that he wasn't. Nevertheless, he found himself checking over his shoulder, just in case. Of course there was nothing there. Why would there be?

Flynn shook his head and returned to focusing on the task at hand. With the bed out of the way, he could see the blood more clearly. In the back of his mind, Flynn's experienced brain ran the figures for how much blood an adult could lose before it was life threatening, and what kind of wounds someone would have to receive to spill this amount of blood in the time between Yuri first shouting and the door finally opening. The results were unpleasant.

He crouched and ran his hand along the floor where the blood stopped. Dust clung to his finger tips and grime crushed into his palms as he pushed, looking for any give. Perhaps there was a hidden compartment under the floor here. The trail of blood just stopped here under the bed, so where did Yuri go from here? He dug his fingernails into the gaps between boards, but they wouldn't budge.

Flynn sighed and sat back, wiping his hands on his knees. Yuri wasn't here. Yuri had evidently been dragged under the bed, and then… well, he had no idea. Teleported somewhere? Lucy did promise to give him back eventually, so he had to still be alive somewhere. He'd search the rest of the house.

* * *

It was amazing how long children could be entertained by the simplest of things. Estelle must have gone through a dozen different clapping rhymes before Lucy finally got bored and climbed onto the bench, insisting Estelle push her.

Estelle stepped behind the bench, trying to relax. If Lucy was right, Bram wouldn't follow them out here, so they were perfectly safe. She really hoped Flynn found Yuri, or at least a lead. Yesterday Lucy promised playing would only be for that day, so Estelle had little hope that she would honour her deal to give Yuri back tomorrow. Who knew how long Lucy would insist on playing before she finally released Yuri, if ever? Estelle watched the back of Lucy's head with a frown. She didn't get the impression that Lucy was doing this to be cruel. Estelle truly believed she was just a sad, lonely little girl with more power than someone of her maturity knew how to handle, and who didn't fully comprehend the ramifications of her actions. She was, after all, only six and had been neglected for a long time. One of her parents needed to talk to her and sort things out, but Estelle had little hope that it would be Bram, who seemed to have issues of his own.

"Lucy, do you have any idea where your mommy went?"

"Hmmm, no. She just left."

"Does she have any relatives she might have gone to stay with?"

Lucy shook her head. "I dunno. I don't think I have any aunts or uncles, and Mommy said Granny and Grandpa went away a few years ago."

"Well, do you know what things she packed?" Karina couldn't have taken everything she owned when she left by herself with little warning, so if she had taken only warm-weather clothes, for example, it might indicate she was going somewhere hot, like Mantaic.

"Mommy didn't pack anything."

"Nothing? What did she take with her when she left, then?"

Lucy shrugged. "Nothing."

"She just… walked out?" But she had to have at least taken clothing, and had she really been able to carry enough money in her pockets to travel all the way to her destination?

Lucy bobbed her head. "Yeah. She ran out, and then Daddy followed her, and then Daddy came back inside but Mommy didn't come back."

* * *

Flynn searched the bedrooms, bathroom, and study for at least an hour. He left no carpet unturned in his hunt for clues, but came up empty nonetheless. He even forced himself to search the closet in his room, with made his hair prickle and palms sweat, but turned out useless. He didn't even know what he was looking for. A trap door leading to a secret passage? A hidden space in the walls were Yuri was trapped? None of it made sense. If Yuri was physically still in the house, he'd be shouting for help by now. Even if he was gagged, they'd still be able to hear something. Could he be unconscious? Flynn wasn't sure what he hoped for, because being knocked unconscious for this long was an alarming medical emergency. He felt compelled to do something to try to bring Yuri back, but he was at a total loss. At least when Yuri fell from Zaude, he'd had a physical area of water to search. He could search the house all day, but he already knew he wasn't going to find Yuri.

Disheartened, he stomped downstairs. In the foyer, his eyes landed on the doors to the front sitting room. They'd avoided that room since the first day, since it had a disconcerting smell and Lucy flipped out when they tried to enter. It was the most mysterious room in the house, so he may as well give it a peek.

The first thing Flynn noticed when he stepped inside was that the smell had gotten worse. They'd initially thought they were smelling the tail end of a rat dying in the walls, but how could it have gotten  _worse_? Beyond that, it no longer smelled like something rotting, anyway. Flynn walked slowly into the room, sniffing the air. For a moment, he considered that he'd been in Yuri's room recently and the smell was lingering on his nose. After rubbing his face on his sleeve and holding his breath for a few seconds, he confirmed that wasn't it. He really was smelling fresh blood in this room.

Flynn shivered and fought the urge to turn around and leave the room alone again. If he smelled fresh blood, maybe Yuri was somewhere nearby. The question, now, was to pinpoint the source of the scent. Damn, he wished Repede were here. Flynn closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and then turned his head and did the same. He got the vague impression that it was in front of him, which wasn't helpful because he stood in the doorway.

It was silly to be afraid of a room, and yet he found the pale blue walls and white-upholstered furniture vaguely threatening. The curtains were open, so even though the power was still out a swath of daylight made the wooden coffee table gleam. The deer on the tapestry across from him stared at him with blank thread eyes, silently judging him for thinking an ordinary sitting room was scary.  _I'm the commandant of the Imperial Knights. I can handle this_. Flynn strode into the room, hating that awful tapestry with the staring deer for making him feel like he was being watched.

"Yuri?" He kept his voice low, though he couldn't explain why. "Yuri, if you can hear me, make a sound."

Unsurprisingly, there was no answer. Maybe Yuri wasn't still nearby - or still conscious - but the blood he smelled had to come from somewhere. Flynn made his way through the room slowly, sniffing every few feet. He reached the far wall. It seemed to be coming from somewhere around here, but he couldn't see any blood. On his knees, he checked under the couch but found nothing. Flynn was getting frustrated, partly because he was eager to get out of this uncannily unnerving room as soon as possible.

Standing upright, he scanned the wall. There was a grandfather clock, a painting of a lighthouse, and the tapestry. A tapestry which, he now considered, seemed rather out of place. The decor of this room - throughout the entire house - was nautical themed. Everywhere he looked, he saw seascapes and ships, lighthouses and fishermen. But here, there was an inexplicable forested scene with not a drop of water in sight. A tapestry was an odd design choice for a family home in the first place. He saw plenty of them at the castle, but in a small, modern home? That tapestry was put there for a reason, and most likely in a rush because time wasn't taken to find something that matched the decor better.

What reason would someone have to hastily slap some art on a wall? Once, Yuri insisted he knew how to throw a boomerang inside a house, which had ended in him chucking a heavy piece of wood at the wall and leaving a crack in the wood. He'd tried to cover it up with a poster before anyone saw. So, what was someone trying to cover up here, and who had done the covering?

Flynn ripped the tapestry from the wall and his stomach turned at what he found.

* * *

Estelle's fingers tightened around the old wooden back of the bench and she stopped pushing. "What? Your mommy left  _before_  your daddy died?"

"Yeah." Lucy pulled her legs on the bench and picked at her skirt "I dunno where she went."

Estelle's mind raced. She'd been acting under the assumption that Karina left to escape the grief of her deceased family, but if Bram had still been alive, and he followed her out…. Horrible thoughts filled her head. There were not many innocent explanations for two people going somewhere and only one coming back while the other vanished mysteriously. "Lucy, when did you… die?"

Lucy froze. "I… I - uh - it's… I don't…" She buried her face in her hands. "N-no. That's - that's bad. That's scary. We - we shouldn't talk about it."

"I'm sorry," Estelle rushed to say. "I didn't mean to make you think about scary things. Can you just tell me, did your mommy leave the house before or after you died?"

Lucy curled into a tight ball and whispered, "After."

Estelle tried to piece together a timeline. Everything that happened had gone down during the time the Adephagos was in the sky. It gave them a window to work with, and the pieces were starting to fall together. Lucy had died first. Estelle didn't know the exact cause, but she was starting to get a horrible feeling about the situation. The death of a child was always tragic, but she was beginning to suspect foul play. After Lucy died, at some point Karina had left the house, presumably intending to come right back inside since she hadn't brought anything. Bram followed her, and then he returned and she didn't. There was nothing else around, nowhere for her to go. What other conclusion could Estelle draw from this? She knew the story must end in Bram committing suicide, which she had attributed to grief. But, what if it wasn't grief that drove Bram to take his own life, but guilt? And if Bram had been responsible for the death of Karina, then the person who'd killed Lucy….

* * *

On a few occasions, Flynn had nicked himself shaving. He was always amazed at how much blood such a tiny cut could produce. He'd dab it with a tissue, but if he wasn't careful, all he'd manage to do was smear the blood around and within seconds of pulling the tissue away, more blood bubbled to the surface. Heaven help him if he managed to nick himself in multiple places, which he'd admittedly done a few times as a teenager when he was still figuring out how shaving worked. On those mornings, he'd have a constellation of pinpricks on his cheek, which was stained with a sheen of blood he'd hastily tried to clean and conceal before Yuri found out and laughed at him.

That was what the wall looked like now. A hundred tiny dots of blood splattered across the wall, and the tapestry had smudged it together like his tissues. Why in the world would someone cover a bloodstain with a tapestry instead of just wash it off? As he stared, highlights popped up across the surface. He wasn't just now noticing them - they actually were forming as beads of fresh blood oozed out of the wall.

On a hunch, on licked his thumb and cleaned a patch. Underneath, he saw something dark below a layer of blue paint. Someone had tried to paint over the blood, and then it continued bleeding straight through. On the plus side, this meant it couldn't possibly be Yuri's blood, because the walls had been painted long before they arrived. On the negative, if it wasn't Yuri's blood he still had no leads to find his friend and a new mystery of whose it was.

Flynn stepped back. His specialty was in commanding regiments and military tactics, but he did have a passing familiarity with the local crime-solving aspects of Knighthood. What he was looking at, if he ignored the smears caused by the tapestry, was s splatter pattern. Blood had sprayed onto the wall here, which meant someone had suffered a grievous injury to a major artery not far away. There would be more blood on the ground, most likely.

He pushed the sofa toward the front window and moved the coffee table so he could roll back the rug. It covered almost the entire room, leaving only a border of hardwood floor, except for this side where it came right up to the edge of the wall. He now realized it must have been set up that way on purpose, likely by the same person who put up the tapestry. When he pushed the rug back, he instantly found what he was looking for. This bloodstain was several years old at least, soaked into the wood so it looked like a dark brown dye. There were splats and smears, drips and pools. The conclusion was obvious. Someone had been attacked in this place, most likely stabbed to account for all the bleeding, enough to make the blood splatter on the wall beside him. Thoughts of how much blood a person could lose ran through his head again; this didn't look like a necessarily lethal amount. It was probably naive thinking, but a person could potentially survive an attack like this, as long as they reached a healer in time.

He spotted drips of blood leading away from the scene of the attack, and pushed the carpet back further. Small drops, spaced every few feet, headed toward the exit. Had the victim walked or crawled for help? There should be foot or hand prints in that case, though. No, they must have been carried. Clearly not dragged, or blood would streak behind the body in a trail. The victim would have to be quite light for the rescuer to carry them.

Flynn already knew exactly why the victim was so light and why the amount of blood didn't look like the lethal amount for an  _adult_ , but he wasn't ready to imagine it yet. He sped to the door and pushed the carpet back here, too. Sure enough, more spots of blood hidden under the carpet. The victim had been carried out of the room, but then where? He stood in the foyer (hastily closing the doors behind him as if there was a tangible presence to contain) and searched for the trail. It had been washed in here, where there was no carpet to hide it under. He'd have to guess which direction they went from here, and he glanced to the front door. The logical thing would be to carry the victim outside, to take them to Capua Nor for treatment.

But then he remembered something else; a drip of brown under the sofa by the fireplace, which he'd mistaken as furniture polish when his eyes glanced over it the other day. Back then, he hadn't been entirely sure that was what he was looking at, but no other solution presented itself and it seemed unimportant, so he pushed it from his mind. Now, he hurried to the living room. Through the back windows, he spotted Estelle standing behind the bench, talking to Lucy with an intense expression. He considered going out there to make sure she was ok, but if she was getting information out of Lucy, his presence might shut her down. He'd keep on eye on her but stay away for now.

He quickly found the spot of blood under the couch. Why had the victim been carried in here? He needed more clues. Flynn crawled around the couch to the rug between the couch and the mantle and pulled it back. Sure enough, another spot on the wooden floors. Where next?

An awful though gripped him, and he almost didn't look because the thought was too disgusting to contemplate. But Flynn didn't get his job by being squeamish, so he slowly turned his eyes to the bricks of the hearth. The next piece of the trail was so inconspicuous he would have thought it was just a dark colouration on the red bricks if he wasn't specifically looking. Unlike the others, this wasn't a plain, perfectly round drop. It had smudged, like it hadn't dripped so much as smeared off. Like a bloody limb dragged across the brick. And why would a bleeding person (who could have still been alive… this could still be a story with a happy ending…) be carried to a fireplace? A fireplace large enough that he remembered thinking an entire person would fit inside?

* * *

It couldn't have been Bram. If Karina really was dead, why was her spirit nowhere to be found? And from what Flynn said of the letters and what Lucy said of her father, Bram seemed to have earnestly loved his family. Why would he do such a thing? It didn't add up. She put together another scenario.

Lucy caught an illness. She slept on the couch in the front sitting room, deathly ill, while her parents tried to find a cure. There was nothing to be done, especially with everyone so busy worrying about the Adephagos. This put stress on her parents, so after Lucy died, Bram and Karina began fighting. Eventually, an argument led to Karina storming out of the house. Bram went after her to continue the argument, but it went nowhere and he told her she'd better not come back until she was ready to forgive him. Karina walked to Capua Nor and decided to leave her husband because her grief over Lucy clouded her thinking, and she ran away from her life. Bram was so devastated at the loss of both his wife and daughter that he hanged himself on the back porch. It made sense. It was tragic, but not so awful she had difficulty believing a person could behave like that. She  _really_  wanted to believe it.

Estelle wanted to ask Lucy, but the topic obviously bothered her. It would be hard to get any information out of her directly. "Lucy, can you tell me more about your parents?"

"I love them!" she blurted. "I do!"

"I believe you." She seemed so adamant about this fact. Who was she trying to convince - Estelle, or herself? "Have you ever been… frightened of your father?"

"W-well… he's…" The bench swung as Lucy rocked herself. In a tiny whisper, she said, "That night was really scary. I didn't know what was going on and they were both yelling a lot."

Estelle circled the bench so she could sit next to Lucy and put her arm around her shoulders. "What made it scary?"

"I -I don't know. I d-don't understand. I-it… it hurt. And it was really scary. But daddy loves me, and so does mommy. Why?" She hugged Estelle and buried her face in her chest. "W-w-why did that happen?"

Estelle's heart ached. "Lucy… I don't know what happened with your father, but I do believe that he loved you in his way. I think he still loved you very much, but maybe… maybe he has trouble expressing it." 'Trouble expressing it', what a laughable understatement. Estelle felt sick defending this man after what she was now near-certain he had done to his own daughter, but she didn't want to upset Lucy. She was too young to understand such topics. All she knew was that she loved her father very much, and then he hurt her. There was no way she was old enough to come to grips with such a betrayal, especially when she was left with no one but the angry spirit of her abuser for company.

* * *

Flynn's hands trembled as they raked through the ash. Grey powder clung to his fingers, and he desperately hoped it was all he would find. He did not want confirmation of his hunch, but he had to search to be thorough. He shoved a half-burned log to the back of the hearth and scooped handfuls of ash out of the way. He knew what he was looking for, but he didn't want to find it.

And then he did. Flynn's fingers rested on something small and smooth, like a worn river rock. He pulled it out slowly and struggled to breathe through his tight chest. It might have been a piece of charred wood, no more than an inch long. He knew it wasn't, though. Wood this small and this low in the fire would have burned away. He reached in again and found another piece, close to where he'd found the first. This time it was a cylinder a bit under an inch long, with flared ends.

Bones. These were bones from a human hand. A very small human hand. Flynn recalled thinking he smelled bacon last night when they lit the fire, but it hadn't been fat from a pig that splattered the hearth with grease.

" _Stop_!"

Flynn whipped around when Lucy abruptly appeared behind him. Her eyes were wide with shock and she leapt at him, smacking his hand and causing the bones to clatter to the bricks of the hearth.

"Don't! Leave it alone!"

"Lucy, I'm sorry, I-"

She let out a wail and shimmering tears dripped down her ethereal face.

The back door slammed open and Estelle rushed in. "Flynn! Are you ok? What happened?"

"Fine." Lucy stood before him, sobbing her eyes out. Flynn kneeled, paralyzed, ash still clinging to his hands. Seeing children cry was his weakness, but he had no idea how to help a sobbing ghost, especially one that didn't like him in the first place.

"Lucy, shhh." Estelle crouched and wrapped her arms around the little girl. "It's ok." Estelle was so much better at this than he was. Flynn preferred to stop crying by fixing the problem causing it, but he couldn't fix this. This little girl had been murdered, right here in this house, and he couldn't go back in time to make it better. Estelle held her close, whispering soothing words and rubbing her shoulders until Lucy had cried herself out.

"I was playing," Lucy murmured, staring into the hearth. Estelle let go of her, but Lucy barely seemed to notice. "I was in my bedroom with my toys. Daddy came home and I heard him talking to Mommy downstairs. He was really mad but I don't know why. I heard footsteps coming upstairs. I was excited, because when Daddy comes home it means he's gonna tuck me in, but it wasn't…" She sniffled. "I don't really r-remember. It was so scary. I c-c-couldn't breathe because there was a pillow on my face."

"It's ok," Estelle said, rested her arm on Lucy's shoulders. "You don't have to tell us."

Lucy breathed faster and she couldn't stop the words tumbling out of her mouth. "But then Mommy and Daddy were both there and they were shouting at each other and I ran away. It's my fault, isn't it? I - It's because I ran away when I wasn't supposed to." She hugged herself and hung her head. "If I'd've stayed like I was told then that night wouldn't have been scary."

"No, no, no," Estelle said quickly. "Lucy, you did nothing wrong!"

"Everything's really blurry. I c-can't remember. I was running and I heard lots of shouting. Mommy was screaming for me and Daddy kept yelling at her. I was told to hide s-so I ran into the front room 'cause I had a fort behind the couch and I was gonna hide in there." She sniffled and rubbed snot and tears on her arm. "I had my eyes closed really tight 'cause I was really scared. Then the door opened and I heard Daddy say to come out but I didn't I - I should have. I kept not listening and being bad."

"You did the right thing, Lucy," Estelle said.

Flynn noticed how shiny Estelle's eyes were, and he couldn't blame her. Listening to Lucy's story made anger burn through him so brightly he wished he could travel through time, so he could go back to when Bram was still alive and give him a piece of his mind.

"And then I was just really scared and I was screaming and it - it hurt real bad - and - and-"

"I know," Estelle said, hugging her tightly. "You don't have to say it."

"It's my fault!" Lucy sobbed. "I didn't listen!"

"What happened was  _not_  your fault," Flynn said firmly. "Your father had already decided what he was going to do when he first entered your room, and even  _if_  your actions influenced him - which I am positive they did not - it still would not be your fault because no parent  _ever_  has a right to hurt their children."

"B-but…"

"Flynn is right. Your daddy did a very bad thing and none of it was your fault."

Lucy stared in confusion. "D-Daddy was bad?"

Estelle nodded firmly. "Yes, Lucy. Your daddy was very bad and you didn't deserve any of what happened."

Lucy hugged Estelle, burying her head in Estelle's shoulder. "Then - then why did it happen?"

"I don't know." Estelle rubbed Lucy's back. "Sometimes people do terrible things and we don't understand why, and there's nothing we can do to stop them."

Flynn watched Estelle hug Lucy with a dour expression. He was angry with Lucy for what she'd done to Yuri, but that didn't stop him from having sympathy for what she'd gone through. What Bram had done to her would be traumatizing to an adult, let alone a child - practically still a baby. And then he'd tried to cover it up by cremating her body. He must have fished the larger bones out of the fire and buried them somewhere. With a sudden though, Flynn looked down at his ashy hands. Bile rose in his throat as it suddenly occurred to him that the ash clinging to his skin had not come from a log. His chest throbbed with revulsion - he had the remains of a  _human child_  on his hands. He stood up so quickly his head spun.

That was when he saw the apparition of a man staring at them, carving knife held tightly in his hand.


	7. The Dead are Not Quiet

“Estellise.”

The urgency in Flynn’s whisper caught her attention. She glanced up and saw him staring at something behind her and then turned her eyes back to Lucy. “Lucy… shh, it’s ok.” She rubbed the sobbing girl’s shoulders and then gently pried her away. Estelle moved slowly, as if there were a rabid dog that would strike if she made any sudden movements. Lucy stopped crying as Estelle rose to her feet and turned around. She was not at all surprised to see Bram Caverly glaring at them, and instantly shifted her stance to put herself between him and Lucy.

Bram had dark hair and lines creased his weathered face. His chin was peppered with stubble and he wore the rough, loose clothes of a working man. He’d clearly spent most of his life lifting heavy weights and doing hard labour on a ship at sea, giving him a barrel chest and arms thicker than Estelle’s legs. He held the knife loosely, like he was quite familiar with wielding it. “I told you,” his voice boomed, “to stay away from my daughter. Lucy, come here.”

“Uh - um - b-but…”

“Don’t move, Lucy.” Estelle held out her arm and stood protectively in front of her.

“You think you have the right?!” Fury consumed Bram’s face. “She’s _my_ daughter! Mine! I won’t let you hurt her!”

“If you love her so much,” Flynn said coldly, “then why is your daughter so frightened of you?”

“Stay out of this! You people think you can trespass in my house and steal my daughter away from me?!”

He vanished, and Estelle had a split second to grab Lucy and throw herself to the side. Less then a second after she and Flynn scrambled out of the way of the hearth, Bram reappeared and his knife screeched against brick as he slashed empty air. Lucy’s scream pierced the room a Estelle got to her feet again as quickly as possible. Fighting an intangible teleporting spirit was going to be tough. Across from her, Flynn snatched the iron fire poker off the hearth. It whipped through the air as he struck Bram, but he might as well have tried to stab smoke.

“How dare you?!” Bram bellowed and flew at Flynn. The poker, at least, could deflect the very real carving knife but Flynn wasn’t used to fighting a weapon with no way to harm the wielder.

“Daddy!” Lucy screamed, tears still streaming down her face. “Daddy, stop!”

Physical attacks couldn’t harm him, but Estelle might be the only person in the world who still had access to attacks that could. Light blossomed around her feet and she prayed Flynn could hold him off long enough. Casting only took a few seconds, but in the midst of a battle every second felt like a minute. On top of that, mana was less powerful than aer so it took longer to charge up enough to make a strong attack. Steel blade screeched against iron rod with Lucy’s wailing making up the backdrop, until finally Estelle had enough energy.

“Photon!” Light burst around Bram, causing the knife to drop from his startled hand. Flynn snatched it off the ground and Bram shouted in surprise before popping out of existence. The entire fight had lasted only a little over a minute. Estelle ran to Flynn and before he could even assure her he was fine, she healed the superficial cuts he hadn’t been able to deflect.

“W-w-where did he go?” Lucy cried. “Did you k-kill him?”

“I don’t think so,” Flynn said. “I doubt it’s that easy to kill a ghost. He probably thought we were helpless against him and ran away when he realized we actually had a way to fight back.” Flynn couldn’t keep the fury out of his voice as his gaze snapped to Lucy and added, “He’s not used to fighting victims that can defend themselves.” Flynn was not a hateful person, and Estelle rarely saw such loathing on his face. It almost frightened her to think that her kind, sweet friend was capable of such malice, but if anything could draw that out of Flynn, a man who murdered his own daughter would be it.

“S-so he’s ok?” Lucy rubbed tears from her eyes.

“Yes, I think so,” Estelle said. “Are you worried about him?”

She bobbed her head.

Estelle frowned. “But… why?”

“B-because… because he’s my daddy.”

Estelle shared a look with Flynn. The poor girl needed a long talk about abuse, why none of it was her fault, and why Bram shouldn’t be forgiven for what he had done to her, but Estelle didn’t feel qualified to give it and they were too worried about other topics like Yuri and how they were going to get out of here safely to give it the care it deserved.

“I don’t think he’s going to come back,” Flynn said. “Now that he knows we can fight back, I don’t believe he’ll strike again. We should maintain care, but I think it’s safe for you and Lucy to be together inside the house.”

“I’m going to take Lucy outside until she calms down,” Estelle said. “Are you all right in here?”

“Yes, I’ll be fine.”

“Ok. Come on, Lucy, let’s go sit on the bench again. Won’t that be fun?”

Lucy sullenly nodded and let Estelle lead her away. Back outside, they sat on the bench where Lucy kicked her legs and stared at her fiddling hands. “I… I’m sorry my daddy tried to hurt you,” she mumbled. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“It’s not your fault,” Estelle said soothingly. “He made his own decisions. Does he scare you often?”

“N… well… I dunno.” She chewed on her lip for a moment before continuing. “He used to show up a lot but whenever he did, i-it reminded me of that night and I got scared and ran away. I think it made him really mad when I hid from him… or really sad. I dunno. He stopped showing up after a little bit. He mostly leaves me alone now.”

That, at least, was a relief. She’d hate to think that Lucy had spent four years constantly terrorized by her father. “Did your daddy ever hurt you before?”

“Nuh-uh!” She shook her head vigorously. “Daddy was always nice. He _never_ hurt me. H-he loves me. ”

“I’m sure he did.” She wasn’t at all sure, though. No wonder Lucy had so much trouble processing what happened. Estelle was an adult and she had trouble understanding how a father could come to the decision to kill his daughter, and presumably his wife, too. Not having parents of her own, it was hard for her to understand such a complicated parent-child relationship.

“And - and I miss my mommy. She was really nice, too, even though she… she…” Lucy rubbed her eyes. “I want her to be here, but since she’s not then I’m glad I have you instead.” Lucy leaned over to wrap her arms around Estelle’s waist.

Estelle frowned while Lucy’s face was down. “Lucy… you know I can’t stay here forever.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have my own friends back home. If I don’t go home, they’ll miss me a lot just like you miss your mommy.”

“But I’ll be so lonely if you leave.”

Estelle sighed. She didn’t want to leave Lucy to be lonely forever, but she couldn’t stay here and babysit a ghost for the rest of her life. “Lucy, do you think you can tell me where Yuri is now?”

Lucy’s grip around Estelle’s waist tightened. “No.”

“Pretty please? I’m really worried that he’s hurt.”

“If I give him back, then you’ll go away and I’ll be alone.”

“Have you ever tried… you know, moving on? You wouldn’t be lonely if you didn’t stay in this house.”

Lucy peered up at her. “Well… I - I dunno. But Mommy hasn’t come back yet. What if she comes back and I’m gone and she gets mad? I’m scared to make Mommy mad.”

Estelle brushed the back of Lucy’s head. “Lucy… I don’t think your mommy is coming back. She’s probably already moved on, and is waiting for you. I bet she’s sad that you haven’t come yet.”

“You don’t know that. How can you be _sure_?”

“Well… I suppose I can’t. Sometimes we have to take risks sometimes.”

“I don’t wanna. I just wanna stay here with you until Mommy comes home.”

“Ok… I’ll stay with you until then.”

“Really? Yay!”

She had the beginning of a plan now. Lucy would agree to move on if she got to see her mother. As long as she didn’t feel compelled to keep Estelle around, she would let Yuri go. Karina would guide Lucy into eternal peace, and Estelle, Flynn, and Yuri could leave. All they had to do now was find Karina, which might be a problem. Bram and Lucy had remained as ghosts, but if Karina was dead and her spirit had already moved on, what were they supposed to do?

 

* * *

 

Flynn had just as much free time as he did their first day here, but now he was unable to relax. Yuri was being held hostage by a murdered child and an angry spirit wanted to kill Estelle for associating with his daughter. All in all, Flynn had had better birthdays. He tried to read to pass the time, but got distracted every few lines. He felt so fidgety from how helpless he was. As a knight, it was his duty to protect people, especially the princess, but now all he could do was sit and hope Estelle talked Lucy into releasing Yuri.

He had barely read five pages when Estelle came inside around noon. “How are you?” she asked.

“Perfectly fine.”

Her smile didn’t reach her eyes, telling him she saw right through his lie. “I feel the same way. Are you hungry?”

“Marginally. Where’s Lucy?”

“I talked her into playing by herself long enough for me to get lunch.”

“How kind of her.” He set the book on the coffee table, not even bothering to mark his place. “Let’s make some sandwiches.”

Joint sandwich making had been a much happier affair the night they arrived. Neither of them were particularly excited about the ham and cheese creations they brought to the table.

“I’ve been thinking,” Estelle said as they began to eat. “If we find Karina, I think Lucy would willingly go with her to… wherever ghosts go when they move on.”

Flynn nodded slowly. “Do you have any idea how to find her?”

Estelle shook her head with a frown. “If she’s dead, she might have already moved on. In which case, finding her might be impossible.”

“Darn, that’s a problem.” Flynn chewed thoughtfully and his eyes drifted to the fireplace. A chill darted down his spine at the memory of what he’d found in there. “Lucy’s remains are still in the house. Some of them, at least. Is it possible Bram is buried nearby as well? Perhaps ghosts are linked to their physical remains and can’t travel too far away from them.”

Her eyes lit up. “Oh! That would make sense. So assuming Karina is dead, perhaps her body is simply too far away.”

“What do you mean, ‘assuming’? I thought we had concluded Bram had murdered her?”

“That’s what we thought, but something occurred to me. All we know is that she left the house and didn’t come back. It’s possible that Lucy didn’t reappear as a ghost right away. Karina may very well have returned to the house after Lucy died but left again before Lucy became conscious as a ghost. I was thinking about that when I wondered about who took Bram down after he hanged himself.”

Flynn slowly lowered the sandwich. “That’s a good point. Yates said the house was found empty after the Adephagos, but if Bram killed his family and then himself, the people coming up to check it out should have found bodies.”

“So what if Karina _didn’t_ die? She came back and found her husband dead, and took care of disposing of the bodies. Then she left, and maybe we can find her somewhere.”

“Alternatively, someone else was involved. In which case, that person would know where Karina’s body ended up. If we find her body, her spirit might be nearby.”

“I think we need more information.” Estelle swallowed the final piece of her sandwich. “You should go to Capua Nor and try to find out exactly who came up to the house first after the Adephagos. Find that person, and maybe we can find Karina.”

Flynn frowned and dusted crumbs from his fingers. “Lucy won’t let you leave.”

“I know. That’s why you’ll have to go by yourself.”

“And leave you here alone?” Preposterous. Flynn couldn’t leave Estelle alone in a house with a psychotic knife-wielding ghost out for her blood.

She reached across the table and rested her hand on his arm. “Flynn, I’ll be fine. I’m the only one who can fight him, anyway.”

He hated to admit she was right. “Well… let’s wait. We don’t know for certain if our theory is correct. We have no evidence that Bram’s body wasn’t taken back to a cemetery in town, which would mean finding Karina’s body may do nothing to help us locate her. I don’t want to leave you alone here unless I absolutely have to.”

“Lucy originally promised to let Yuri go tomorrow. I doubt she plans to live up to that, though.”

“Probably not.” Flynn was pretty sure Lucy wasn’t actively _planning_ on betraying them, it was just that she was six and not mature enough to properly understand deals and the passage of time. “We can give it a shot, though.”

“Spend today trying to find Bram’s body to confirm our theory. Tomorrow, you go into town and try to find more information, assuming Yuri isn’t released.”

“That sounds like an acceptable plan.”

* * *

 

Flynn had already searched the house for any sign of Yuri and found nothing, so he didn’t have much hope of finding Bram. Having already searched the house, he went outside. There were a few places where the wooden sides under the front porch were loose, and he pried those open to shine the light into the darkness. Under the front porch was nothing but dirt. Flynn continued going around the house, checking under the back porch and then in the crawlspace under the house itself. He even crawled a little ways in to make sure nothing was hidden beyond his range of sight, but all he got for his efforts was a spider in his hair and dirt on his clothes. Bram was obviously nowhere in or under the house. Perhaps, then, his body was somewhere on the grounds nearby?

Flynn leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, trying to imagine he was the person who first found Bram’s bod. What would he do? In his mind, he stepped onto the back porch and found Bram’s body hanging from the ceiling beam. He carefully pulled him down, and then what? Take the body back to Capua Nor? Maybe, but they were operating under the assumption he was still around. His body hadn’t been hidden under the house, so he must be buried somewhere nearby.

From the corner of the closet, Flynn fetched a shovel. If a body had been buried out here, there might be some indication in the grass. Perhaps the ground would have a bit of a rise, or the grass would be slightly different from growing more recently. Flynn walked in rings around the house, head down and scanning for clues. The ground was frustratingly uniform. Digging at random wouldn’t get him anywhere, but he couldn’t find any indication in the gross that a body had been buried. Maybe they were wrong and Bram wasn’t buried her after all. If that was the case, how in the world were they going to find Karina?

Flynn came to a stop facing the cliff. He had to be here somewhere…. His eyes landed on the broken fence board Yuri had found their first day here. It was odd, because with a fence, the thin flat boards usually didn’t go into the ground. Flynn poked the tip of the shovel into the earth in front of the broken board. If it hadn’t been the beginning of a fence, what else could it be? Well, he didn’t have any other indication of a grave, so he might as well try his luck at the only spot with any kind of feature.

The ground was hard and he had to stamp on the shovel to get a good scoop. Insects crawled away as he exposed more and more earth, and even though it wasn’t too hot, eventually sweat dripped down the back of his neck. A pile of dirt and grass built up to the side, and he kept digging until his shovel came down on something hard. At first he thought it was a rock, and he tossed the shovel aside and crouched to take a closer look.

His hole was about two feet wide and about as deep. He reached into the bottom and used his fingers to brush away dry dirt covering what he thought was a rock. If it was a rock, it was the smoothest, whited rock he’d ever seen. Flynn swallowed a lump when he brushed enough dirt away to confirm what he’d found was the top of a skull. It was a hasty burial, without so much as a coffin, but whoever had done the burying couldn’t have been trying to cover up a murder. His hand rested on the sharp surface of the broken board and wondered where the rest of the grave marker had gone.

A quick breath drawn was the only warning Flynn had before a fist smashed into the back of his skull. Flynn hit the ground and rolled. Looming over him was a furious Bram already drawing his arm back for another blow. Flynn jumped to his feet just in time to avoid another punch, but staggered as the throb in his head threw off his balance. Bram rushed forward and slammed into him. Getting checked by a ghost was like slamming into an electrified fence. Flynn grunted and stumbled back as the ghost’s energy radiated across him. Fingers clutched the front of his shirt and shoved. Bram didn’t have a knife this time, but a quick glance over his shoulder showed how close to the cliff he was. Bram was going to push him off.

Flynn threw a punch, but Bram didn’t even flinch when his fist slammed into his side. Bram smirked at him and kept pushing while Flynn scrambled to keep his feet on grass. He grasped at the hands gripping him, but couldn’t get a good grip on the not-quite-tangible flesh. The crashing waves far below sounded too close for comfort.

Movement over Bram’s shoulder caught his attention. Estelle sprinted across the grass, light glowing all around her. Seconds later she shouted, “Photon!”

Light exploded so close to Flynn’s face he stumbled back and closed his eyes. His heel dipped over the side of the cliff and in a panic he threw himself forward. He was still lying on his chest, catching his breath, when Estelle ran up to him.

“Flynn! Flynn, are you ok? Are you hurt?”

“I’m quite fine.” He got to his knees and brushed dirt from his chest. “Thank you, Estellise. I believe you saved my life.”

“I looked up from the porch and saw him trying to push you over the cliff. What happened?”

Flynn gestured to the hole. “I believe I’ve found his body.”

Estelle gave him a hand as he got to his feet. “That confirms it then, doesn’t it? Bram and Lucy’s bodies are both here, and so are their ghosts. Either Karina is still alive, or her body must be somewhere else.”

Flynn nodded. “So it would seem. Tomorrow, I’ll go into town and try to find out more.”

* * *

 

They decided to dig up the rest of the body. The fact that Bram appeared just as Flynn unearthed the body strongly hinted it was his, but they had to know for sure. Estelle felt bad about making Flynn do all the work, but Lucy insisted on playing and Estelle didn’t want her around while her father’s skeleton was dug up.

Instead, she and Lucy sat inside and covered page after page in crayon drawings. Every few minutes, Estelle checked on Flynn through the window as he exhumed the body. She hoped Bram wouldn’t come back after she fended him off for a second time, but she had no way to be certain. She was petrified that the next time she checked out the window, Flynn would have vanished over the cliff.

“Estelle.” Lucy tugged on her sleeve. “Estelle, lookit.”

She pulled her eyes from the window and looked down at Lucy. The girl was holding up a drawing with four crudely drawn stick figures. “Oh, that’s very pretty. Is this one you?” Estelle pointed at the shortest one.

“Uh-huh. And this is Mommy and this is Daddy and this is you.” She beamed as she pointed out the figures. Estelle was the one with pink scribbles on the head and a triangle around the waist to form a skirt.

“You made me look so pretty.”

“Yeah!”

“Were you drawing your family?”

She bobbed her head. “Uh-huh. Plus you, ‘cause you’re like my new family.”

Estelle struggled to maintain her smile. She could not be Lucy’s new family. She had a life to get back to, and a family of her own. “Hm… do you want to see my family?”

“Huh?”

“Hand me a paper. I want to draw my family too.”

“’Kay.”

Estelle took a blank sheet of paper and lay on her chest on the living room floor. She had an array of crayons to choose from and carefully drew her friends as clearly as she could. In the middle she drew herself using the black crayon to draw a big smile. Her stick-like arms stretched to the sides and held hands with two taller stick figures. One had big grey blobs on the shoulders and scribbly yellow hair, and the other wore down the tip of the dark grey crayon from filling in his shirt, pants, and hair. She kept going, using the red crayon next to draw a short figure and then trying to get white to show up over the brown hair to draw goggles. She used more blue than necessary on the next one, because she didn’t need six-year-old Lucy asking why that stick figure was showing so much skin. One of the taller ones used the bright purple crayon and then she used the black to draw a huge goofy grin on him. The green crayon was already almost worn down by how much grass Lucy had colours in earlier, but Estelle manage to make it work for the pants on the next figure and then did her best to draw a dog with the blue one. To make it clear, she drew a little speech bubble that said “woof!”

“Here they are,” Estelle said, holding it out to show Lucy.

Lucy sat on her knees and looked at it curiously. “That’s your family?”

Estelle nodded. “I don’t have parents, but I made all these friends. They’re like my family. This is Repede and he’s a big dog. He’s kinda scary at first but once you get to know him, he’s really loyal and he loves little kids like you.” She moved her finger to the next one. “And this is Raven. He’s really goofy and kind of weird, but he’s actually really nice. Karol is the boss of a guild in Dahngrest. He’s very brave and kind.”

Lucy stuck her finger at the paper. “How come her ears are triangles?”

“That’s Judith. She’s a Krityan. She flies around on a giant whale.”

Lucy’s eyes widened. “A giant flying whale?”

“Yes! His name is Ba’ul but I didn’t draw him. Judith is kind of hard to get to know at first, but she’s great. I know she’ll always have my back. And this one is Rita. She was my first ever friend my own age. She’s super smart and amazing. And you know these two.” She pointed with two hands at the figures on either side of herself. “This one is Flynn. He’s a knight who’s worked super hard to protect people. And this is Yuri, who’s been Flynn’s best friend since they were younger than you. Yuri is pretty funny sometimes, but he’s also really brave and he’ll fight hard to protect anyone. Sometimes he makes mistakes, but I know he’ll always pull through. When I was in a lot of danger one time, he led the others in rescuing me. Yuri is like a big brother to me and I love him - and all the others - very much.”

Lucy dragged her hand across the paper as she analyzed the picture. “They’re like your mommy and daddy?”

“Um, sort of. They’re the closest thing I have to family. So, they’re my family just like your mom and dad are your family, and I love them just as much.”

“Huh…” Lucy was staring at the drawing of Yuri. Estelle couldn’t tell what she was thinking, but hopefully demonstrating to Lucy that Estelle had loved ones too and explaining that Yuri was a good person and not just a barrier to their play time might convince her to let him go. Then Lucy looked up with a smile. “You drew a cute puppy. I wanna draw a puppy, too.” She grabbed a crayon and set to work.

Estelle sighed. It had been a small hope that this would work, but she should have known better. Still, Lucy had looked genuinely thoughtful as she analyzed Estelle’s drawing. Maybe it had some effect, however small.

About an hour later, Flynn came inside. Before saying anything, he stomped over to the kitchen sink and washed his hands for a good five minutes. Estelle left Lucy colouring and hurried over to talk to him. “Well?”

“I’m ninety percent positive it’s Bram, based on how tall the skeleton is. I’ve heard the main way to tell sex on a skeleton is by the pelvis, but I’m not qualified enough to figure that out. I put the bones in a box and left it outside. I’ll arrange for a proper burial for him when I go into town.”

“Ok. Thank you for doing this, Flynn. I know it can’t have been pleasant.”

“It’s fine. Let’s get something together for dinner.”

Dinner was another subdued affair. Lucy finally agreed to let Estelle go to sleep afterwards and they retired upstairs. Estelle couldn’t bring herself to shower again after what happened last night, but Flynn was sweaty and still felt grimy from handling a skeleton, so he risked it. Thankfully, Bram was nowhere to be seen.

Estelle slept in her own room that night, though she and Flynn both kept their doors open so they could hear anything going on, just in case. As she was falling asleep, she realized that though she could hear the waves as always, the creaking she’d come to expect at night was absent. Maybe this was a good sign if it meant Bram wasn’t spending the night hanging on the back porch. Perhaps her attack on the cliff this afternoon had scared him off, although that did make her wonder. If Bram wasn’t here anymore, where did he go?

* * *

 

Flynn ate breakfast before heading out. He and Estelle sat at the table eating sunny-side-up eggs and toast. They didn’t talk much, because Flynn was still worried sick about leaving her hear alone. Lucy hadn’t appeared yet this morning, but Flynn didn’t want to risk suggesting Estelle come with them. If Lucy thought Estelle had abandoned her, there was no telling what she might do to Yuri.

After breakfast, he grabbed his sword, gave Estelle a hug, and set off for Capua Nor. It was a long walk, and he had to fight off a few monsters on the way, but after about an hour he arrived in town. Estelle had given him Mr. Yates’ address, so that’s where he headed first.

Yates had a mug of coffee in hand when he answered the door. “Hm? Good morning, Commandant. Can I help you with something?”

“Yes. I’d like to talk to you about the house.”

“Very well, please come in. Can I get you a drink or something?”

“No, thank you.” He followed Yates to the sitting room and took a seat on the couch.

“So, what can I do for you? Is there are problem at the house I can take care of?”

“I’m going to get straight to the point.” The longer he stayed here, the longer Estelle was home alone with a homicidal ghost. “Are you aware that the house is haunted?”

Yates paused before answering and his grip on the coffee mug tightened. “Haunted? Now, don’t be silly. Commandant, I didn’t know you believed in such things.”

“You own the house and presumably spent time there renovating it. How much contact have you had with the spirits that reside there?”

“I’m not sure what you’re accusing me of.”

It was too early for this. He was tired from his walk and sore from a bruise a grasshopper had left. “I have spoken face to face with Bram Caverly and his daughter. Their ghosts undeniably haunt the house. What I’m asking is, how much do you know about their circumstances?”

“Y-you saw them?” His mug shook as he took a sip. “You men, actually _saw_ them?”

“Yes! Now how much do you know?”

Yates frowned into his coffee. “Look, Commandant… If you think I knowingly rented a haunted house to you…”

“It has occurred to me, yes.”

Yates fixed his eyes on Flynn. “Ok. I knew there was _something_ odd about the house and I thought it had… I don’t know, some spiritual stuff going on, but I swear I didn’t know actual ghosts would show up!”

“Tell me everything you know.”

“It was a buddy of mine who first went up there after the Adephagos. He was one of Bram’s drinking buddies and when Bram didn’t show up for a few days he got worried. My friend came running back and reported what he found to the local knights. The knights went up there and dealt with it, and then the city auctioned off the house. I bought it, just as I told you.”

“Did your friend tell you what he found?”

Yates nodded. “Yes… but not ‘til after I bought it. He didn’t want to talk about it at first but after I bought it he screamed at me and told me I was an idiot. That was when he told me the family hadn’t merely disappeared. Just as well my wife left me - I wouldn’t have wanted to move up there anyway.”

But apparently it was good enough to rent out to other unsuspecting people. “Precisely what did your friend tell you?”

“The worst was in the front room. There was blood all over the wall and floor. The living room reeked of burned meat, and then he found Bram hanging on the back porch. There was no sign of Karina or the kid. The knights went up later and I’m told they took Bram down and gave him a quick burial nearby. They searched the grounds and the beach for Karina or their daughter but all they found was a strip of ribbon that was probably from Karina’s dress. It was lying in the grass out back. Bram didn’t have any wounds, though, so all that blood must’ve come from somebody.” Yates shifted his weight, clutching and unclutching the mug. “It wasn’t ‘til after I got up there and started renovating that I figured there was something going on. The weirdest thing was in the front room. I did my best to clean up the blood, but no matter how many times I tried to wash it off, it just kept coming back. I must’ve painted over it a dozen times and it kept bleeding right through the paint.”

“So you put up a tapestry to cover it.”

“I was desperate! I got the rest of the house looking pretty nice, but that one patch of the wall just refused to stay clean. If I didn’t get any tenants I’d really be in the hole for what I paid for it!”

“I see.” The story wasn’t too surprising. “Do you think there’s any way Karina Caverly is still alive?”

“Doubt it. Where’d she go? There was no sign that she’d packed her things in the house, and she was hardly a fighter. They only came to town in a carriage because of the monsters. Why do you ask?”

“I’m just wondering what happened to her body.”

Yates shrugged. “I have no idea. Look, I’m really sorry I didn’t mention this stuff, but I honestly thought it wasn’t a big deal. It sounds pretty insane, don’t it? Telling the princess and the commandant the house might be haunted? I figured, at worse you’d hear a few bumps in the night or something like that.”

“I believe you.” It would have been nice to get a heads up, but at this point it was too late and getting mad at the guy wouldn’t help Yuri. “Do you perhaps know which knights were sent to the house?”

Yates shook his head. “Nah, but if you check at the local headquarters, I’m sure they’d have records.”

“Thank you. That will be all, Mr. Yates. I don’t recommend renting this house out to anyone else.”

Yates stared at his shoes. “Yeah…”

Flynn left the house more frustrated than before. They still didn’t know where Karina was. If her ribbon was found out back, Flynn might have assumed Bram pushed her off the cliff, but Yates said the knights searched the beach as well and still didn’t find a body. He couldn’t head back right away, either. Now he needed to make a stop at the Knight headquarters and get as much information from the first responders as he could, arrange a proper burial with the local mortician, and find a repairman who could fix their electricity.

He glanced at the sun; it wasn’t even midday yet. He still had plenty of time to get back before dark. Estelle would be fine.


	8. Here's Johnny

Estelle hadn’t seen Lucy all morning. With her vanished and Flynn out of the house, Estelle suddenly found herself with nothing to do. She made herself busy by tidying the house. They’d shirked on the dishes while dealing with everything else, so she washed the pile in the sink.

Once all the dishes left in the sink were drying in the sink rack, her eyes fell on the carving knife sitting next to the knife block. Flynn had set it there after Bram attacked them by the fireplace. Yuri had washed her blood off it the night he attacked her in the shower, and now the silver blade gleamed. Estelle wrapped her fingers around the wooden handle and felt its weight. Bram had used this knife twice now; was it his weapon of choice? Her gaze drifted to the closed doors leading to the sitting room, and she quickly set it down as she wondered if this was the very same knife he’d used to kill Lucy. It couldn’t be, could it? Yates would have replaced the cutlery set… right? But if Bram had washed the knife and put it away before hanging himself and Yates had no idea the knife block carried such guilt….

Estelle shuddered and stepped away from the counter. She didn’t think she wanted to know. As she turned around, she came face to face with Lucy. “Oh! Good morning.”

Lucy held her hands behind her back and stared at her feet, squirming as she stood.

“Is something wrong?”

“Um… Estelle…” She pulled her eyes up. “I was thinking. Your friends are like… like your family, right? And the guy with the black hair… you miss him like I miss my mommy.”

Estelle slowly nodded. “That’s right, I miss him very much.”

“Ok, then - then I think… I think I should give him back. And you should live with your family ‘cause otherwise you’ll be sad, but you hafta come visit me, ok?”

A weight rose from her chest that lifted her cheeks into a smile. “You’re going to bring Yuri back?”

“If you promise to come visit me after you leave!”

Estelle bobbed her head. “Yes, of course I can do that.” If they couldn’t find Karina, coming every now and then to visit and make sure she didn’t get too lonely was the least she could do.

“Ok! I’m gonna go get him. Wait here!”

Lucy vanished, and Estelle threw herself on the couch with a sigh of relief. She couldn’t wait to see Flynn’s face when he got home and found Yuri waiting for him. Despite all the hardship they’d gone through yesterday and the night before, it seemed like everything was finally going to work out. The coach was coming tomorrow to pick them up and take them back to Zaphias, so if Flynn got back around noon, the three of them would still have the rest of the day to enjoy their vacation in peace.

About ten minutes later, Lucy reappeared. She wore a face like she’d been caught sneaking into the cookie jar.

“Lucy? Did something happen?”

“I -I can’t find him. I wanted to bring him back - really, I did! - but he isn’t where I left him.”

Estelle’s joy faded. “What do you mean? Where did you leave him?”

“I dunno how to call it. I thought he wouldn’t move but I went back and he wasn’t there. I don’t know what to do!” She threw herself at the couch and buried herself in Estelle’s chest. “I’m s-sorry, Estelle! I really wanted to bring him back. Please don’t hurt me.”

Estelle quickly wrapped her arms around Lucy. She was frustrated and worried, but she couldn’t let Lucy think that what her father did to her was a normal reaction to displeasure. “Lucy, it’s ok, I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I’m s-s-sorry.”

“I’ll help you look for him.”

“You can’t. What if I lose you there, too? I don’t wanna lose you.”

Wherever he was, Yuri must have wandered away trying to find his way back here. Where in the world could Lucy have put him? The only good news Estelle gleaned from this was that if Yuri had wandered off, he must not be too hurt. “Don’t worry about me. I want to help you look for him.”

Lucy shook her head. “No, you can’t go there. I - I don’t think I shoulda taken the other guy there, either.”

“Can you describe what this place is?”

“It’s dark.” She shrugged. “I like going there. It’s cozy and peaceful. I thought he’d be ok but… but I messed up.” Estelle couldn’t see her face, but from her voice it was obvious Lucy was on the brink of tears. “I’m really sorry, Estelle. I - I did a bad thing, didn’t I?”

Estelle took a deep breath and rubbed Lucy’s back. “Yes, what you did was not a good thing. But now you’re trying to fix it, and that’s what’s important.” She simply couldn’t bring herself to yell at a crying child, no matter how upset she was with her actions.

“I’m so sorry.” Lucy pulled herself away and rubbed her eyes. “I’m gonna fix it. I’m gonna find him. I’ll bring him back and make everything better and then you’ll be happy again. Stay here, Estelle, I’m gonna go find him.”

“Be caref-” Lucy vanished before Estelle could finish. Estelle sighed and leaned back on the couch. Her good mood from before had diminished, but not completely disappeared. Wherever Yuri was, he must be ok. Lucy would find him soon and then Flynn would come home and everything would be ok. She just had to wait.

* * *

 

Estelle rested on the couch, trying to wait patiently while worrying herself sick. Lucy had been gone for over an hour at least. She couldn’t begin to guess where Yuri was. He might not even still be in this world, considering how abruptly he’d vanished. Wherever he was, she sure hoped Lucy found him soon. She curled up on her side. She couldn’t focus on anything with her mind busy worrying about the others, so she closed her eyes and tried to relax.

It was just as she started to drift to sleep when she heard something upstairs. Her eyes opened with a frown. Had that thump actually happened, or was it the beginning of a dream? She sat up and glanced to the ceiling, just in time to hear floorboards squeaking. There was a creak, shortly followed by another. Footsteps.

“Lucy?”

At her voice, the footsteps stopped. Whoever was making them sounded a lot heavier than a six year old girl. Estelle slowly rose from the couch and drifted toward the stairs. Her piqued ears caught every sound from the second story, like the thud of a door swinging open and the creak of the stairs. At the base of the steps, Estelle stopped. Someone was walking toward her, but her fear vanished when she saw who it was.

“Yuri!”

Yuri walked slowly, his head down with hair falling in curtains around his face. Strands of hair clumped together with blood, and though it was hard to make out on his dark clothes, bloodstains covered his shirt and pants. Estelle was ecstatic to see him, but when he reached the base of the stairs and raised his head, her joy rushed back into worry. She’d never seen him so pale, and blood coated his lips and down his chin. Streaks of dried blood fell down his cheeks like tears, trails ran from his nose and snatches of it was visible through his hair having leaked from his ears. None of his clothes were ripped, but the patches of blood on his clothes had to come from somewhere and she shuddered to think what the rest of him looked like.

Despite his atrocious appearance, Estelle couldn’t help throwing herself at him the moment he was close enough. When her arms wrapped around him, his whole body stiffened and she quickly withdrew, afraid she’d caused him pain. “Oh, Yuri, you’re a wreck. Let me heal you.”

She started to cast, but he shook his head. “It’s fine,” he croaked. “None of it’s fresh.”

“If you insist…” The blood coating his chin made it look like he’d ripped someone’s throat out with his teeth, but based on the bleeding from every other orifice, she assumed it had been coughed up. “You still need to clean up. Let’s go to the sink and wash your face.” A dozen questioned burned in her brain, but for now she concentrated on making sure he really was fine.

“I can get it.”

Estelle stayed by the island while Yuri went to the sink. The water ran and he used the dishcloth to scrub his face. As he washed, Estelle wondered where Lucy was. Obviously she’d found Yuri, but why hadn’t she come back herself? There were still so many unanswered questions. Yuri was alive, but how well was he? His voice seemed oddly flat and he moved stiffly. Clearly something was wrong with him, and if she found out exactly where he had been, she could help him more.

The water turned off and Yuri let out a long sigh. “Wow. I feel a lot better.”

“I’m so happy you’re ok, Yuri.” He still hadn’t turned around, but knowing the blood had been cleaned from his face was a relief. “Are you sure you don’t have any injuries that need healing?”

“I’m fine. But, can you come over here?”

Estelle rounded the island. “What is it?” He needed to take a nice long shower. There was still blood in his hair and it must be smeared across his body under his clothes as well.

“No, come closer.”

She took a step, but slowly. Yuri still hadn’t turned to face her, and his hands were now hidden in front of his body. “Yuri, you’re acting really weird.”

“I want to show you something.”

What was she afraid of? It was just Yuri. He’d obviously been at least somewhat traumatized by wherever he’d been, explaining his dull voice and hunched shoulders. “Are you sure you’re feeling ok?” She took another step closer and then her gaze fell on the counter. Something was missing. What should she be seeing? Her eyes traced the surface and then landed on the knife block, with one empty slot. The carving knife.

Estelle bolted backward just as Yuri spun around. The knife flashed as it whipped through the air. “Yuri! What are you doing?!” She scrambled around the island, keeping the counter between her and Yuri.

“Aw, come on, don’t run away from me,” Yuri began rounding the island, and Estelle hurried to keep moving and keep him opposite from her. Yuri glared at her and started going the other way, causing Estelle to change direction again.

He smiled as he stared at her across the island. Every muscle tensed, ready to bolt. Yuri held his arms loosely in front of him, knife tight in his right hand. He jerked to the left and Estelle’s whole body flinched, but she didn’t fall for the bluff.

“Come on, Estelle… I’m not gonna hurt you. It’s just me.”

Estelle swallowed a lump of fear. “You are _not_ Yuri.”

He slowly sidestepped around the island, forcing Estelle to keep moving. “Are you _sure_?”

Of course she was. Yuri wouldn’t even dream of hurting her, let alone coming at her with a knife. Except… she had no idea where he’d been or what had happened to him. It was obvious from his pale, bloody face he’d been through something awful. What if he’d been somewhere that screwed up his mind and drove him insane? Physically, he certainly looked exactly like her Yuri. Specifically, like a Yuri who had gone through serious shit and come out of it mentally addled.

Estelle kept moving around the island until she was near the sink. She had managed to keep Yuri opposite her, but this couldn’t last forever. Their delicate balance was going to break any moment now and she had to be ready. Yuri’s foot landed on the stool and he leapt onto the counter. The millisecond Estelle saw him move, her hand shot to the knife block to arm herself. She grabbed the first knife she could reach but when she brought it around to face Yuri she realized she’d grabbed the pairing knife. Its three inch blade was hardly threatening and it looked comical compared to the carving knife a grinning Yuri held as he stood over her.

The blade shook in her hand. “Stay back!”

“You wouldn’t hurt your old pal, would you?” He leapt at her.

Estelle threw herself forward and grabbed his legs. She pushed and let his momentum carry him forward. Yuri’s face smashed into the sink with a clunk and then Estelle ran for the foyer. She desperately wanted to make sure Yuri was all right, but if she got too close he would probably stab her.

She heard him moan as he stood up. “You _bitch_!” Yuri shouted at her.

In the foyer, she looked back to see him standing with one hand over his forehead and fresh blood trickling down his face. Any second now he was going to come running after her again, so she had to make a decision fast. Run outside, or run upstairs? Outside, there was nowhere to hide and no one to help unless she reached Capua Nor. Yuri could outrun her. He was injured now, but she didn’t know how injured and she wasn’t going to bet her life on it. The stairs rattled from the force of her steps as she raced up them. She tore across the landing, straight to her bedroom, and slammed the door with such force wind resistance slowed her down.

Thumping footsteps had already reached the stairs, so she grabbed the heavy wooden chair by the desk and jammed it under the doorknob. The front legs stuck in the air and she kicked the back legs as close to the door as she could until it was solidly in place. Hopefully it would hold. Just as she got it settled, a force slammed into the door and the knob rattled. Estelle held her breath as he twisted the knob and pounded, but her impromptu barricade held.

“Little princess, little princess, let me come in!” Yuri shouted and rapped on the door. “Or I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow the house down!”

“Go away!” Her voice cracked as she screamed and when her gelatinous knees finally gave out, she slumped to the floor. Estelle pressed her back to the wall and clutched the pairing knife close to her chest. Breath came in short gasps and she wanted to vomit.

“Estelle, come on, open the door. I told you, I’m not gonna hurt you.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and took a long breath through her nose and then let it out through her mouth. Her whole body vibrated from panic.

“I’m not… honest… I’m just gonna slash your throat open, ok? I’ll do it fast. You won’t feel a thing.”

Tears rose in her eyes and Estelle smothered a cry. She’d thought that after all she’d been through on their adventures, she could handle anything. That was true to a point. She could handle anything, as long as it wasn’t said in Yuri’s voice. Her knuckles turned white around the handle of the knife as she clutched it like an anchor. It was a useless weapon, though, because he was right: she couldn’t hurt him. Whatever was wrong with him, she knew there had to be a way to get him back to normal. She could not bring herself to hurt Yuri.

“Estelle…” His voice was punctuated by a long drag of splintering wood. Probably the knife dragging across the door. “You’re making this unnecessarily difficult, Estelle.”

There was no point talking back. It would just egg him on and she didn’t trust herself to speak, anyway.

“Come on, open the door. I’ve heard redheads look good in pink and I want to see if the reverse is true.”

 _It’s not Yuri_ , Estelle recited to herself over an over. Even if it was, it wasn’t _really_ him. The real Yuri would never say such awful things.

 _Scrrrrrape… scrrrrrape…_ Every drag of the knife cut into her heart. The seconds trickled by like minutes as Estelle hugged herself and tried to stop shaking. There was nowhere to run. The only exit was through the window, and she’d probably break her ankle if she jumped. That would just make it easier for Yuri to catch her outside. All she could do was huddle by her barricade, clutch her useless pairing knife, and pray Flynn got home soon.

Flynn! The thought bolted through her like lightning. What would happen when Flynn got home? Yuri would go down to say hello and Flynn would have no idea Yuri was… not himself. She needed to warn him.

“Estelle, you’re still there, right?”

She glanced to the door and jumped as she saw movement. Four pale fingers wormed under the door and reached for her.

“Why are you making this harder?” Yuri’s voice was soft, soothing, the way he reassured her when she felt defeated and picked up her spirits when she was sad. He used that familiar tone to say, “C’mere and let me cut you. I _promise_ I’ll make it quick.”

Her fist smashed his fingers and she barked, “Next time it’ll be the knife!”

The fingers retracted and Estelle heaved for breath. She closed and opened her eyes, half-convinced that eventually she’d snap them open in bed and realize this whole morning was a nightmare.

Yuri slammed the door and the wood creaked. That knife wasn’t enough to cut through the door, was it? No, it couldn’t be. The door was solid wood; even if he tried to weaken it and then pound it, the door wouldn’t cave. She hoped.

“Let me in, Estelle! Open the damn door, you cunt!”

Estelle flinched and tried not to cry. _Deep breaths, Estelle._ She just had to sit it out until Flynn got here and then she’d warn him about Yuri and together they could deal with this. She pulled her knees close to her chest and clamped her eyes shut. _Ignore him, ignore him_. She forced her mind to think about happier thoughts from happier times, but every cheery memory that contained Yuri made her chest ache and hands tremble. Rita came to mind and she latched onto happy memories with her other best friend. _Think about Rita instead of Yuri._

Time passed. She had no idea how much, but it felt like an age. Yuri spent the entire time pounding on the door, calling for her to come out. Estelle eventually managed to drown him out with her happy thoughts, but then his words took an unexpected turn.

“Let me in, Esteeeelle,” his sing-song voice abruptly cut off with a choke. He gasped for breath, moaned, and then with a thump she had to assume he fell to the floor.

Estelle glanced to the door with a frown, and when Yuri spoke again it came as a moan.

“Estelle… help.” He coughed and groaned. “I’m s-sorry. I don’t know h-how long I can hold on.”

She leapt to her feet. Yuri! He needed help! Estelle’s hands reached the chair when an awful thought struck her: what if it was a trap?

Yurimoaned. “Estelle… please…”

But was it really him? Or was it the _other_ him trying to lure her out? She couldn’t even ask something only he would know, because an insane Yuri still had the same memories. The moment she opened the door, he might spring up and stab her. Even if she grabbed her sword, she’d be forced to fight him and then she might accidentally hurt him. She couldn’t risk it until Flynn got home and they could outnumber him.

“E-Estelle… please, hurry.”

It had to be a trap. What were the chances of him suddenly snapping to his senses like that? He was trying to trick her into opening the door so he could attack her, and if he killed her, there would be no way to warn Flynn when he got home. Estelle curled into a ball next to the well. _It’s not him_. She pressed her hands against her eyes, struggling to block out his pleas. But if it was….

* * *

 

 

Flynn sat on the Knight cart, lost in thought. After confirming that a repairman would come by to fix the electricity later this afternoon, he’d gone to the Knight headquarters to see if he could talk to one of the knights who’d gone to the house. Only one of them was still around, and Flynn had to wait around for half an hour for him to come back from patrol. It had been a frustrating wait, because all he wanted to do was sit and think in peace while everyone was so star-struck at having the Commandant around that over a dozen people offered him a cup of coffee.

The knight he’d spoken to hadn’t given him any mind-blowing information. It was the same as Mr. Yates said. Bram hanging on the porch, blood all over the front room, Karina and Lucy nowhere to be seen. It was a waste of time and he still didn’t know how to get Yuri back. The only thing he’d gotten from the knight was an opinion.

“We can’t know for sure,” the guy had said. “Not much evidence to go on. Personally? I think the lady jumped. Her body wasn’t in the house or on the grounds. Took a dive off the cliffs and the ocean washed her body away somewhere.”

Flynn sure hoped that wasn’t the case. If her corpse was left to the will of the tides, finding it would be impossible. She was probably a skeleton on the bottom of the ocean by now. How were they ever going to find her spirit and put Lucy to rest?

The cart pulled up at the path leading to the house. “This will be fine, thanks,” Flynn said.

“Do you need anything else, sir?” the knight asked.

Flynn shook his head. “That’s all. I don’t want to take up any more of your time.”

“It’s no problem, Commandant. Sorry we couldn’t be of more help. Have a nice day.”

Flynn hopped off, said goodbye, and walked toward the house, quickening his pace when he wondered if Bram had made a move against Estelle yet. Damn, how could this vacation have gone to hell so quickly? Only a few days ago they were enjoying themselves. Was it really only three days ago that they were happily exploring the cave? Memories from that afternoon flitted through his mind and he walked a little faster as he prayed those wouldn’t become some of the last memories he had of Yuri.

As the memories flew by, one of them lagged behind and hung around his brain: a toy horse lodged in the sand. Estelle’s voice, _“The tide washes everything into the cave, and then when it pulls out the items get lodged in the sand and left behind.”_ The knights had searched the beach for Karina’s body, but had they checked the cave? If the tide was in when they arrived, they could easily have assumed it was naturally always filled with water. She must have jumped, and then the tied swept her body into the cave. They’d explored one branch of the cave, but it went deeper and had more arms. That was where they would find Karina!

Flynn started running in his eagerness to share his realization. He stomped up the steps to the front porch and entered the foyer. “Lady Estellise?” She wasn’t in the kitchen, so perhaps she was playing with Lucy on the back porch. Footsteps thumped down the stairs, and he turned to see Yuri coming toward him.

“Yuri!” His heart sang with relief. All his worries washed away and the stress of finding Karina vanished in an instant. If Yuri was back, then they could leave right now, no hassle! He hadn’t expected such an easy solution to their problem. “It’s good to see you.” He was too relieved to wonder too much about Yuri’s right hand, and why he seemed to be awkwardly holding it behind his back. “When did you get back?”

“This morning.” Yuri reached the floor of the foyer and Flynn walked forward.

As he stepped toward Yuri, something pounded upstairs. “Flynn!” Estelle’s voice reached through the house and he looked up in surprise. “Flynn, stay away! It’s not Yuri! Run!”

Flynn looked back just in time to see Yuri swinging a knife at him. He darted backward and whipped out his sword. “What the hell?!”

“Get out of here,” Yuri snarled. He held out the knife, but with Flynn’s sword warding him off, he didn’t make any moves. “You’re interrupting.”

“What am I interrupting?” Flynn spoke slowly, analyzing every contour of Yuri’s face. It was definitely him. Flynn had never seen such a hateful expression on his friend’s face before, but after so many years he would have been able to pick out an impostor in the dark. That also meant that although he knew this was physically Yuri, he also knew that Yuri nearly always held weapons in his left hand. This Yuri was gripping the knife in his right.

“All I want to do is give Estelle a pretty red necklace but she’s being difficult and you’re getting in the way.”

“You want to kill Lady Estellise?” It was hard to keep his voice steady with his heart hammering like this. He had a sword while Yuri only had a knife, but he had a feeling Yuri would be a lot less hindered by friendship to actually use it.

“What, am I speaking in Krytian? What does it look like I’m trying to do? Now get out of here so I can get back to cutting that bitch!”

“This isn’t you, Yuri. I believe something is controlling you, but I know you’re in there. Calm down and we can work through this.”

“If you don’t fuck off, I’m going to kill you, too.”

Flynn held his ground and kept the sword steady. He was ready to defend himself at the slightest indication of attack. “Yuri, listen to me. You don’t want to do any of this. We’re your friends. You know me - it’s Flynn.”

“I don’t care.”

“I’m Flynn Scifo and we’ve been best friends for most of our lives.”

That got a reaction. His stony face twitched and his eyes landed on Flynn with new interest. “Flynn… Scifo?”

“That’s right,” he encouraged. “We’re friends.”

“You’re the… commandant? _That_ Flynn Scifo?”

Flynn nodded. “Yes, I am.” Was he actually getting through to him?

“Ok, Flynn… slight change of plan.” He threw himself forward with a snarl of, “You’ll pay for this, you bastard!”

Sword met knife as he knocked Yuri’s hand away. He heard footsteps pounding down the stairs but focused on fending off Yuri. His sword gave him more reach and he smashed the flat of his blade against Yuri’s side, sending him crashing into a wall. “What the hell is your gripe with me?!”

“This is your fault!” The force of Yuri’s anger drowned out tactical thinking skills, so when he raised the knife over his head and rushed at him, Flynn dropped his sword and caught Yuri’s wrist. He twisted and then smashed his knee into Yuri’s gut. Yuri staggered and Estelle sprinted down the stairs.

“Open the closet,” Flynn snapped.

She swung the door of the coat closet open and Flynn swivelled around and shoved Yuri into it. Yuri hit the back wall with a thud and then Flynn slammed it shut. Pressing his back against it, he said, “Quick! Find something to barricade the door!”

Yuri’s fists thundered against the door, which threatened to open with every pound. Flynn braced his feet on the wooden floor and pressed back with his entire body weight to keep him in. The knife pushed through the crack at the side, barely missing Flynn’s ear.

“Get away from the door!” Yuri bellowed. “I’m not going to hurt you, Flynn, buddy, I’m just going to _eviscerate you_.”

Yuri slammed into the door and it pushed open about an inch before Flynn managed to push it back. “Please hurry with the blockade, Estellise.”

Estelle ran back from the kitchen with a chair. “Try this.” Flynn moved just as she pushed the chair against the door and jammed the back under the handle. “I don’t know how long that will hold.”

“Then let’s get moving.” He grabbed her hand and dashed out the door. They didn’t stop running as he gasped, “Tell me what happened.”

“Lucy said she’d,” Estelle panted from trying to explain while running around the house, “bring Yuri back. She - disappeared, and then - Yuri showed up.” They reached the edge of the cliff and stopped. Estelle caught her breath and continued, “He walked downstairs. I don’t know where he came from, but he was covered in blood. He went to the kitchen to clean up and then attacked me with the knife. I barricaded myself in the room while waiting for you. He was outside my door for over an hour trying to get me to come out or ram the door down.”

Flynn saw the horror hiding behind adrenaline and without thinking he pulled her into a hug. “I’m certain that’s not Yuri.”

“I know it’s not _him_ ,” Estelle said while squeezing him tightly. “But is it actually Yuri gone insane, or is some other personality possessing him? That’s what I don’t know.”

“I think it’s someone else. He was holding the knife in his right hand. Going insane wouldn’t change Yuri’s handedness. Besides, he didn’t seem to know who I was. He knew my name was Flynn, but he was surprised when I said I was Flynn Scifo. He didn’t want to kill me until he found that out.”

Estelle pulled away from the hug but left her hand on Flynn’s arms. “It must be Bram. He realized I could fight him off in his ghost form, so somehow he possessed Yuri so I wouldn’t be able to attack him.”

“And now he’s trying to kill you for… whatever it is Bram hates you for.”

“Stealing Lucy’s affection, I would imagine. But what gripe does he have against you?”

“Who can say? We need to find Karina. I have a theory that she jumped off the cliff and her body was swept into the cave.”

“That makes sense. Let’s go look.”

Flynn turned his back to the house, and his heart skipped a beat when he saw movement. Yuri - Bram - had already broken out of the closet. Through the back windows, Flynn saw him hurtling toward the back door. “Let’s go!”

They fled down the stairs as quickly as they dared. Rocks disturbed by their flying feet toppled off the cliff to the beach far below. Flynn hit the sand so fas he tripped and skidded to his knees. Estelle wordlessly helped him up and then they turned to the cave entrance. Flynn’s heart sank was he saw a wave rush into the opening. It wasn’t quite high-tide, but it was coming on. The floor of the cave was covered in a few inches of water.

“It can’t be helped,” Estelle said, following his gaze. “We don’t have time to wait for low-tide.”

“Right. I don’t suppose you had time to grab the lantern?”

She shook her head and then glanced up the cliff. Bram dashed down the stairs with rushed abandon. Flynn was afraid he’d decide the stairs took too long and jump, destroying Yuri’s body. “Hurry.”

They splashed through the incoming wave and into the cave. Inside, the splashes from their footsteps sounded impossibly loud. They kept running and then turned down the first side tunnel that branched off. As they moved farther from the cave opening, the light dimmed until they finally had to stop running or fear crashing into the walls. They reached the point where the tunnel branched off in two separate paths and stopped to catch their breath and think.

Flynn shivered. It was a warm summer day, but little sunlight penetrated the cave. Cold seawater filled his boots and his eyes struggled to adjust to the minimal snatches of light. The water wasn’t still, either. It swept in and out of the cave with every heave of the tide. It was hard to hear anything over the echo of water rushing through the cave system. Only one other sound reached his ears: the splashing of footsteps. Bram was following them.

Estelle looked back the way they had come. All Flynn could see of her was a vague outline and a glint in her eye. “We should split up.”

“When is splitting up _ever_ a good idea?”

She snapped back to face him, though it didn’t do much good in this darkness. “When there’s a homicidal maniac who wants to kill both of us but can only be in one place at a time.”

“Ok, I see your point. You go ahead, and then I’ll loudly splash down the other tunnel to lure him after me.”

“Who says you get to be the bait?”

“I’m not going to let _you_ be the bait.”

Water rippled as she stomped her foot. “We’re never going to agree on who should be the bait, so let’s both go as quietly and carefully as we can in different directions. Plus, we’ll have better luck finding Karina’s remains if we split up and cover more ground.”

“It will be difficult. I can hardly see in here.”

“I know. Go slow and use your sense of touch. I don’t think she’d be in the middle of a path. The bones are probably jammed in an alcove or behind a boulder or something like that.”

“Right. If you find her, give a shout. I’m sure any loud noise will echo in here. Then we’ll meet up outside. Hopefully finding her bones will deal with the Bram problem but if it doesn’t…”

“We’ll figure that out when we get there. Hurry, he’s coming. I’ll take the left path.” She gave him a quick hug. “Be safe.”

“You too.” Her footsteps splashed away, but other footsteps were splashing closer so he took off down the other path.

 


	9. Red on You

Flynn walked. It was all he could do, but he had to move frustratingly slow. He had no sense of time in the dark, wet cave, but his legs had grown weary. He had to perform an awkward high-stepping march or drag them against the flowing water. The water only reached just above his ankles, but after a while it grew tiring and in the silence of the cave, every splashing footstep sounded like thunder. The closest he could come to vision was varying shades of black and the moist air made his whole body feel cold and damp.

How was he going to find a skeleton down here? This was a stupid idea. She had probably been pushed to the back of the cave, but he had no way to be sure. He didn't even know for sure that finding her body would fix everything. What if all they found was a pile of bones, and no ghost to be seen? What if they did find her ghost, but she couldn't get Yuri back? All their hopes rode on this goose chase into the dark and he had no idea what they'd do if it didn't pan out.

A long, shrill screech jolted him out of his thoughts. It was so sharp it set his teeth on edge and made him clap his hands over his ears. It was like scraping a fork against the bottom of a pot, but drawn out and amplified by the cave. The only image he could put to it was Bram dragging the knife against the wall, sparks flying as metal screamed against rock. The sound bounced around the passages, seeming to come from every direction at once.

Flynn hastily moved on, praying it hadn't originated from in front of him. The screech had rejuvenated his desperation, and he started to run. It was stupid, because going fast would make it almost impossible to find Karina, but he couldn't bring himself to slow down. There was a murderer lurking in these caves trying to kill him, and he could be closing in on him as he thought. Panic forced him forward and water splashed up his legs.

 _Splash! Splash! Splash!_  Running quietly was impossible. He just wanted out of these awful tunnels! His footsteps splashed, and then he stumbled on a rock hidden under the water. The lack of friction caused his entire body to twist and he dropped to his knees with a crash of water. The cold stabbed his hands and soaked through his knees while the echo of the splash continued to bounce down the tunnel.

Was that an echo of his own splashing, or was it someone else not too far away? His chest froze, but it had nothing to do with the icy water drenching his sleeves and lower legs. He wanted desperately to leap to his feet, but he stayed perfectly still and analyzed the sounds.

That… was definitely footsteps. Someone was walking slowly through the water, but was it Bram or Estelle?

Flynn rose to his feet, moving slowly. The sound was coming from behind him, but he had no way to know if it was Bram coming to kill him, or Estelle who'd looped around to his path. It was too late to hope that whoever it was didn't know he was here, because he'd already risen a ruckus crashing around. Hesitantly, he called out, "Lady Estellise? Is that you?"

His heart hammered as he waited for a response. What he got instead another earsplitting grind of metal. That was not Estelle.

He fought the urge to bolt. There would be turns and branches further ahead, but if he ran, Bram would hear his footsteps easily and be able to follow. He'd have to go as slowly as he could to make his steps discreet. Slowly, cautiously, he pulled his foot from the water and slipped it back in. Water plopped but it didn't make an obvious splash. He swallowed a nervous lump and moved again. His focus on silence made every drip of water from his soaking clothes sound like a cymbal.

Flynn's fingers brushed the frozen rock wall. In the absence of reliable sight, he needed touch to find a branching path. The wall provided support as he wobbled on one foot from taking slow, lengthy strides. He had to move slow, so he tried to make every step count. Every instinct screamed at him to  _run, run, run_ , but he held fast to his reasoning and refused to give in. Stealth was the key, so his trembling legs slowly slipped into the water one at a time. He just hoped Bram couldn't hear his loud drags for air. The tunnel curved, but he hadn't come to a fork yet. There had to be one soon. Forcing himself to walk slowly made every second seem like a century and he was certain that any second now, Bram would appear right behind him.

Light reached across the rocky walls and made the incoming tide glimmer. Flynn jerked his head around and saw pale orange light spreading around the bend. Bram, at least, had thought to grab the lantern. His splashing steps were so close now. Any second Bram would come around the curve and make a run for Flynn. If only he could come to a fork and slip away, but there was nowhere to run. Unless - there!

Light from behind reached a patch of shadow darker than the rest. It was a tunnel meandering off the one he was following, and maybe it would be his salvation. Flynn rushed to it as quick as he dared. Making noise was unavoidable, but he tried to make every splash as quiet as possible.

Then a torrent of splashes surged toward him. Flynn whipped his head around and then took off when he saw Bram sprinting toward him. The light bounced chaotically around the walls, making Flynn dizzy. The water felt like quicksand as it sucked at his feet and tried to drag him down. The mild resistance offered by the water might as well have been anvils strapped to his feet now that his life depended on it.

Flynn made it to the fork and kept running. He hadn't wanted to engage in a fight, because with his sword he had no way to guarantee he wouldn't fatally wound Yuri. He could practically feel Bram's breath on the back of his neck and he knew he wasn't going to outrun him. He reached for the sword as he ran and then something thudded against his back, just below his shoulder. He whipped his sword out and managed to spin around.

The flat of the sword smashed into Bram and knocked him away. "Get back!" Then he noticed the blood coating Bram's knife and the dull throb settling into his right shoulder. His arm shook as the throb began to grow in intensity.

Bram smirked at him in a disturbingly Yuri-like way. "You wouldn't stab your buddy, would you?"

"Yuri can take a beating. I'm sure he won't be too upset if his body's been kicked around a bit when he wakes up." His breathing started to quicken. The throbbing grew fiercer and fire shot down his right arm and raced through the back. The sword wavered and he struggled to focus on the enemy in front of him when the wound in his back was screaming for his attention.

Then Bram struck. His knife swished through the air and water splattered around his feet. Flynn tried to swing his sword to block, but the sudden movement caused the pain to skyrocket and the sword slipped from his hand with a gasp. Flynn dropped to his knees and barely avoided the knife whizzing over his head. Shaking hands swept through the icy water as he struggled to find his sword. Bram set his lantern on a boulder and Flynn grasped for the shimmer of steel underwater. He had almost reached it when Bram punched him in the face and kicked him in the gut.

Flynn hit the water with a splash. Salt burned the already fiery wound and then Bram leapt at him. Water stung his eyes but Flynn's foot lashed out and landed with a satisfying thump. Bram fell to the ground beside him and Flynn started getting up. Based on how much of Bram's knife had been coated, the wound must be deep. His heart thudded and his whole body felt electrified. Adrenaline was keeping him going now, but it wouldn't be able to hold back the effects of blood loss for too much longer and he needed to get out of here before he lost his strength.

Pain slashed across his calf and he cried out. His leg collapsed and he fell back down. This wound was long but not deep, but the salty water amplified the burning. Water churned as Bram threw himself at Flynn. The knife sank beneath Flynn's ribs and Bram kept pushing it in to pin Flynn to the ground as he brought his leg up and straddled him.

"Well, well, looks like the mighty commandant isn't so mighty after all."

"Bram," Flynn panted, "listen to me. I don't know what your grievance with me is, but I'm sure we can work it out."

"I don't think so." With his free hand, he grabbed Flynn's hair and twisted his head to the side.

Flynn didn't have a chance to hold his breath before his face was forced under water. Only his ear was still above the water line, but only just. Ripples from his thrashing sent a trickle of water to his ear. His right arm was too painful to move, so he grabbed Bram's wrist with his left and tried to pull it away so he could breathe.

"You're the one who destroyed the Adephagos. Why did you do it then!? That thing was in the sky for  _weeks_! And then you finally got rid of it  _that night._  It's all your fault! Why did you wait so long!?"

Flynn's lungs begged for air. He'd already swallowed some seawater in his thrashing and the salt burned his eyes. He was going to drown in less than half a foot of water. His hand clenched around Bram's wrist and he jerked, just hard enough to give him the strength to pull his head out of the water. Flynn gasped for air and tried to ignore the agony in his back and ribs. "I'm sorry!" he panted. "I did… the best… I could…." He wasn't even the one who'd taken care of the Adephagos, but Bram neither knew nor cared.

"This could all have been avoided!" There were tears in Bram's eyes now but Flynn couldn't spare any sympathy when he twisted the knife while pulling it out.

Flynn screamed and struggled to throw him off. "Yuri… Yuri, I know you're still there… you can fight this." He was losing too much blood. It wouldn't be more than a minute or two before he lacked the strength to fight back at all.

The tip of Bram's knife poked Flynn's throat. Flynn tried to remain completely motionless while still catching his breath from near-drowning. The already-bloody knife poked his skin, so mildly he couldn't feel the pain over the agony in his other wounds. Bram tightened his grip on the knife and squeezed his eyes so hatred oozed out. He pulled back the knife and Flynn turned his head away, bracing himself for the slash to his throat.

Instead, the knife sank into the side of his chest. It must have just barely missed his lung because he could still breathe, but the shock unleashed another scream.

"I'm not going to kill you so easily,  _Commandant_ ," the title came out filled with derision. "Not until you've suffered like your inaction made  _me_  suffer."

Flynn ground his teeth and scrapped his fingers against the rocky ground. He'd lost too much blood to mount a counter-attack, but he could still sneer. " _You_  suffer? W-what about your f-f-family? How much did you m-make  _them_  suffer!?"

With a cry of rage, Bram slammed Flynn's head against the ground. If the water hadn't broken the impact, it probably would have cracked his skull. As it was, Flynn's vision blurred and his head throbbed.

"You don't don't understand anything! It wasn't my fault!"

Sure, it wasn't his fault he'd murdered his family. Flynn was just  _certain_  his reasons were totally justifiable. Through the haze of pain, all he managed to spit out was, "You child-murdering piece of shit."

When the knife came to rest in his stomach, even Bram's wail of rage didn't drown out Flynn's scream.

* * *

 

Estelle took her time moving through the cave. She needed to move slowly and carefully to properly scan for any sign of Karina's remains, as well as to not alert Bram to her location. It was frustrating to walk so carefully, but after a childhood spent trying to sneak around overseers on squeaky floors, she was quite good at walking silently.

She carefully placed one foot in front of the other, using the wall as a guide through the darkness. She was so focused on her task that when someone behind her spoke, she jumped.

"Estelle!"

Estelle whipped around with a splash. "Lucy! What are you doing here?"

"I couldn't find Yuri so I came back to apologize and then followed you down here. What are you doing?"

Estelle struggled to explain. The good news was that Lucy faintly glowed, enabling Estelle to see better than before. "We think we can find your mommy down here. But, your daddy is also down here and he's very angry so we need to be quiet. I think the reason you couldn't find Yuri is because your dad took over his body."

"Oh no." Lucy covered her face. "I didn't know he could do that. I'm really sorry, Estelle."

"It's ok." It wasn't, but now wasn't the time to get mad at her. "Do you want to help me find Mommy?"

She dropped her hands and grinned. "Oh, yes!"

"Ok, now stay close to me and be very quite."

Lucy nodded and then splashed onward. "Where do you think she is?"

Estelle winced at how loud her voice was. Sound carried well in these tunnels, and she didn't fancy meeting Bram. "I don't know, but we're going to play a game, ok? We have to see who can be the sneakiest."

"Sneakiest?"

Estelle nodded. "Like a ninja. You know, from stories? I don't know if you'll be able to be as quiet as me, but you can try."

"Oh, I can! I-" she gasped and covered her mouth, then nodded quickly and smiled. She took another step, and this time her foot didn't even sink into the water. Tiny ripples spread from her feet with every weightless step. Good, at least she was quiet.

With Lucy to light up the tunnel, Estelle could move faster. She didn't have to worry about tripping or hurting herself, and she was confident she wasn't missing any sign of Karina. When they reached a branch in the path, Estelle started to go one way but Lucy grabbed her skirt and tugged.

"We should go this way."

"Hm? Why do you say that?"

"She's this way."

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

Estelle had no other sense of direction down here but random guesses, so following Lucy was as good as taking a stab in the dark. They crossed to the other branch and continued their journey. The water was steadily getting higher. When they arrived, it had been as high as her ankles but now it was creeping up her calves. The good news was that even though they couldn't rely on footprints to follow out, the constant influx of waves told her what direction the entrance was in. When it came time to leave, they could just follow the tide. They'd only be in trouble if they stayed here long enough that the tide went out again and left nothing but sandy ground with no trace of footprints.

"When we find Mommy, is everything going to be ok?"

Estelle nodded. "Yes. We're going to make everything all right."

"And… Mommy isn't going to hurt me, is she?"

Estelle glanced down at her with a frown. He heart ached to think that her father's betrayal had damaged her trust in her parents so badly. "No, of course not."

"Ok, good. Because… because I really want to see her again. Even though it's scary, she - she's my mommy. And I miss her."

"Of course you do. That makes complete sense." Estelle stroked the back of Lucy's head and they came to another turn.

"I'm afraid she might be mad at me 'cause I didn't do what I was told that night."

"Don't be ridiculous. Your mother loves you very much and she would never be mad at you for what happened. Which way now?"

"Uh…" Lucy thought for a moment, then grabbed Estelle's hand and hurried to the right.

Estelle let Lucy guide her through the darkness. It was comforting to feel like she had some semblance of a guide, even if Lucy was just going off her gut instincts. The buzz of intangible energy in her hand reminded her that Lucy was definitely not restricted to normal human abilities. Perhaps she could sense Karina's energy somehow.

They'd been walking for about ten minutes when a blood-curdling scream echoed through the tunnels. It bounced off the walls and Lucy pressed against Estelle's leg. Estelle's throat tightened and she whispered, "Flynn."

"W-what was that?"

Estelle took a slow breath. Panicking wouldn't help anybody. It would just set Lucy off, and she needed Lucy calm and rational to guide her. Besides, running toward the scream in a desperate rage wouldn't help Flynn or Yuri. She needed to stay focused on her mission. "I… I think your daddy caught up with Flynn."

Lucy gasped and tugged Estelle's hand. "We hafta save him! He's your family, you said. You hafta help your family."

"The best way we can help him is to find Mommy. She's the only one who can stop your Daddy now. Can you find her really fast?" Stay calm for Lucy. Stay collected for Flynn. If Bram had caught him, saving both him and Yuri was up to her. She just prayed Flynn was still alive by the time they found Karina.

"We can't go fast, though, 'cause the quiet game."

Now that she knew Bram was with Flynn, staying quiet was useless. "You already won. You were  _so_  quiet and I was so impressed. Now we need to play the speed game and go as fast as we can."

"Ok! I can win that one, too!"

"You have to keep holding my hand, though." Just to make sure she didn't teleport far ahead.

Lucy bobbed her head and they took off. Estelle's skirt was soaked with water, but all she could focus on was the echo of that scream. Flynn must be in so much pain. They careened around corners, following some path that only Lucy could detect. They went as fast as they could, but every time Estelle thought about Flynn she felt like they were wading through pudding.

"There! She's right ahead!"

Estelle didn't see anything but a stone wall. As they ran closer, the light radiating from Lucy glinted off a mountain of glass bottles half buried in sand. The tunnel floor slope upward to a beach of damp sand, though that was hardly visible under the debris. They must have reached the back of the cave, where the majority of the flotsam ended up. When they got closer, Estelle realized that one of the bottles wasn't a bottle at all, but the back of a smooth skull. Karina.

"Lucy, stay back." She didn't need to see her mom's remains up close. Lucy obliged and hovered a few yards away while Estelle closed in on the pile of debris. She pushed some sand and bits of driftwood away and exposed the skull, washed clean by the sea. Now what? They'd counted on her appearing when they found the skeleton, but what was their plan if that didn't work? How would she ever save Flynn and Yuri?  _Please, Karina, we need you._  Her hand rested on the smooth dome of the skull.

A shock raced through her hand and then light flashed in the dark tunnel. Estelle whirled around and came face to face with a glowing woman standing on the water. She had a heart-shaped face and long, chestnut hair, and she smiled when she looked at Estelle. "Thank you for bringing my daughter to me."

"Mommy!" Lucy shouted, but she held back. Estelle had assumed the girl would bolt to her mom's side the moment she appeared, but she was still frightened that her mother was mad at her. Estelle could see the nervous fear in her eyes and it broke her heart.

"Karina, we need your help. Your husband has possessed my friend Yuri and he's trying to kill my other friend. Can you do anything to stop him? Please?"

Karina tilted her head curiously. "Who are you?"

Estelle squeezed her fists together, trying not to grow impatient. Flynn could by dying  _right now._  "My name is Estellise Sidos Heurassein. I'm here with my friends Yuri Lowell and Flynn Scifo. They're in trouble!"

Karina's eyes widened in recognition. "Flynn Scifo? The commandant?"

"That's right!"

"He's her family," Lucy put in proudly. "That's why we hafta save him."

"If Bram is possessing a human host, there is little I can do in this form. I can force his spirit into the afterlife, but I will need a physical vessel to hold him still. Estellise, will you lend me your body?"

She hesitated, but only for a moment. Another distant scream echoed through the cave and her decision was made. Anything to help her boys. "Yes."

Karina smiled. "Good. Then clear your mind and relax. This will not be painful."

Estelle closed her eyes and tried to calm down. It was hard to calm her mind when it kept trying to worry about Flynn and Yuri, but she took a deep breath and forced herself to relax. A cold hand, tingly with unearthly energy, brushed her chest. The energy swelled and then she felt cold rush into her body. She gasped, and then her vision blacked out.

* * *

 

Estelle blinked a few times, and when she came to her senses, she found herself sitting on a couch. Wait, what? Where was the cave? Where was Flynn? She tried to look around, but her head wouldn't move. Her eyes were locked on a needlepoint project in her hands, and her fingers carefully fed the thread through the cloth. Except, those weren't her fingers and she wasn't consciously controlling them.

There was a thud, and her body moved beyond her control to look in its direction. She was in the living room of the house, and a very alive Bram Caverly stomped through the door. "You're home late," her mouth said with a voice that wasn't her own.

And then she understand. This must be Karina's memory, one so powerful and hot on her mind that when her spirit merged into Estelle's body, Estelle's mind shared a piece of it.

"We were drinking," Bram grumbled.

"I figured as much." Karina set her needlepoint down and walked to the foyer. "What were the boys at the bar going on about this time?"

Bram snorted and crossed his arms. "What else? That blasted mess is still in the sky. What else is there to worry about?"

"Hm…" Karina turned around to gaze at the view out the back windows. The sky was dark, but she could faintly see the warbling tubes across the sky.

She stared, clearly in deep thought. Estelle didn't know what about, but she had become very nervous about what she was going to witness in this memory. This must be the night they died. If only there was a way to skip through it, because the thought of watching the night through Karina's eyes was too horrible. To have to witness her own daughter murdered by her husband…

"Bram, I've been thinking."

"What about?"

"Do you remember what I said about the catastrophe this morning?" She turned back around.

Bram nodded slowly. "You said it looked like the end of days."

"You agree with me, don't you?"

He frowned, and then heaved a sigh. "It's what everybody's saying. I don't know what to believe. The Knights keep saying to stay calm."

"They've been saying that for weeks and it isn't getting better, and there are those reports of people growing sickly and ill. That massive building appeared in the ocean, Aspio was destroyed, the commandant went berserk, giant bird monsters sighted in Dahngrest, whole new land masses formed out of crystal… the world is going to hell, Bram."

He nodded. "It's certainly looking that way."

Karina took a deep breath. "I've made my decision. I'm not going to wait around for some cataclysmic disaster to destroy us. I won't have Lucy suffer that way. The world ending, Bram, and it's only going to get worse from here. We cannot allow our daughter to suffer the end of days."

Bram frowned in confusion. "What?"

"Kill her gently, and then kill ourselves before the apocalypse begins in earnest."

"What?!"

Estelle shared his shock.  _What?_

"You can't be serious!" Bram shouted.

"It's the only logical thing. It's like killing a dying pet to save them from further suffering.

Bram gaped at her. "A  _pet_? You're talking about our  _daughter_!"

"If you do it out of love for the pet, then you should be even more willing to do it out of love for your child! I don't want her to suffer the end of the world.  _I_  don't want to suffer the end of the world. We should die in peace before it gets any worse."

"I can't believe you're even suggesting this, Karina. The answer is no. There's that new commandant kid who's trying to fix this."

"Something Scifo, yes, I know." Karina crossed her arms and stood her ground. "So far he hasn't done anything. The last commandant was no good so I wouldn't be surprised if this one is just as bad. How do we know he isn't responsible for keeping it in the sky?"

Bram rubbed the side of his head. "I don't believe it. It doesn't matter. We'll make it through this as a family, together."

Karina glared at him for a tense moment, and then turned her head away. "Fine. I'm going to go put Lucy to bed."

Every stomping steps up the stairs was a testament to how furious she was at Bram's decision, but Estelle didn't share an ounce of that fury. She didn't know what was going on. Why was Bram the one advocating for  _not_  killing Lucy?

Karina entered Lucy's room, which was the same room Estelle was currently staying in. Lucy sat on the floor, pushing toy carts around wooden figurines. "Lucy, it's time for bed."

"One sec," Lucy said, eyes fixed on her game.

Karina knelt before her end brushed hair out of her eyes. "It's already past your bedtime."

Lucy looked up. "Is Daddy going to tuck me in?"

Karina smiled. "Not tonight. Now get to bed."

Lucy heaved a sigh. She was already in her night gown and ready for bed, so she crawled under her blanket. Karina sat on the edge of the bed and gently stroked her hair. "I love you, Lucy."

"I love you, too, Mommy."

Karina smiled, but her eyes were sad. She reached out for the extra pillow, and Estelle silently screamed.  _No, no, no, this isn't right, don't do it, NO_.

The reassuring smile didn't leave Karina's lips as she pressed the pillow over Lucy's face. Lucy squirmed and kicked, but the pillow muffled her screams. Not enough that Estelle couldn't hear them at all, though. Estelle couldn't feel her own body, but she knew her heart would be racing. This wasn't supposed to be happening.  _Bram_  killed Lucy and Karina, didn't he? Her mind raced as she tried to remember if Lucy had ever explicitly said her dad was the one who killed her.

"Karina." The door pushed open. "Do you want to talk about - what are you doing!?"

"Go away," Karina said calmly.

Bram's feet pounded across the floor and then he grabbed Karina and ripped her away from Lucy. "Get off her!" His voice thundered with fury.

"Stay out of this!" Karina shrieked. "I'm doing what's best for her!"

Lucy, gasping for air and panic in her eyes, leapt of the bed and dashed for the door.

"Lucy!" Karina shouted. "You stay right here!" She got to her feet and ran after Lucy, but Bram wrenched her arm back.

"Lucy, go hide!"

Estelle tried to block out the events and get out of the memory. This wasn't what she expected and the idea that this awful woman who'd tried to kill Lucy was now possessing her body terrified her. What had she gotten herself into? Karina and Bram were still yelling, their voices rising with every exchange. Estelle didn't need to hear the exact words. What could be gained from listening to two people argue the relative merits of child murder?

Then Karina was running down the stairs. She'd managed to trip Bram, leaving him sprawled on the floor, and she dashed across the foyer to the kitchen. "Lucy?! Lucy, where are you?!" She glanced around but there was no sign of the girl. Then her eyes landed on the carving knife left on the counter and she snatched it up.

Footsteps pounded down the stairs. Karina ran back to the foyer and slipped into the front room just as Bram reach the base of the stairs. She shoved a heavy table in front of the doors and then turned to face the room. Bram's weight crashed against the door with a flurry of fists.

"Karina! Karina, think this over! You don't have to do it!  _Please_!" His bellowing voice was hoarse with a painful edge of desperation.

"Lucy?" Karina called softly. "Are you in here, darling?"

"Lucy!" Bram pounded the door. "Lucy, get out of there! Come out, Lucy! Go out the window! Please, darling, run!"

Karina crossed the room like cat hunting a mouse.

 _Please, no_ , Estelle silently cried. She couldn't even close her eyes.

A blanket draped over the back of the couch. Karina walked up to it and yanked it away. Lucy yelped and curled into a tighter ball, her eyes screwed shut.

Karina smiled down at her. "Don't be afraid. I'm doing this to help you. I love you, darling."

She grabbed Lucy's arm and pulled her to her feet.

"Ah! Mommy, let go, that hurts!"

Karina raised the knife and Bram's pounding on the door became increasingly frantic. The wood splintered and the table threatened to fall over.

"Karina! No! Stay away from my daughter! STOP!"

The knife flashed on its way toward Lucy. A voiceless scream echoed through Estelle's mind, joined by Lucy's high-pitched wail and Bram's agonized bellow. Blood splattered everywhere - on Lucy, on Karina, on the wall and the couch and all over the floor. Lucy's hands flailed in a useless effort to stop it. All Estelle could see was red, and her ears rang with the horrific screams of a dying child until those turned into chokes and gasps.

When Lucy stopped moving, Estelle had never felt a silence so heavy. Her eyes filled with tears she couldn't shed and even though the memory had moved on and Karina was now walking slowly to the door, the image of Lucy's small body covered in blood remained burned in Estelle's mind.

Karina moved the table and Bram burst into the room. He took one look at the tiny, blood-covered hand visible behind the couch and screamed.

" _What have you done_?!"

"It's for the best. I wanted to do it more gently but you interrupted."

"HOW COULD YOU?" Bram's face was red and glistened with streaks of tears.

Karina calmly ignored him and pushed past him. Bram ran across the room, probably to see if there was any chance Lucy was still alive. In the kitchen, Karina washed the knife and her hands in the sink. Then, moving by rote, she fetched a length of rope from the pantry. She probably planned to kill herself.

Estelle couldn't stop a vile, hateful voice whispering,  _good_.

Bram appeared in the doorway, shoulders shaking with either rage or despair, or perhaps a bit of both. His fury had turned into an icy whisper. "How  _could_  you?"

"I spared her from future misery. We should do the same. I have no interest in waiting around for the end of the world.

Bram just stared at her, and then an unintelligible roar escaped his throat as he stampeded toward her.

Karina gasped, "Bram!" and then ran away. She dashed across the living room and out the back porch, Bram right behind her. A few steps across the lawn, Bram grabbed the ribbon around the waist of her skirt and ripped it off. He tossed it aside and kept running. Karina screamed as he grabbed her and kicked to escape his bear-like arms. "Let go of me!"

"You witch! You detestable witch! How could you do that to our daughter!?"

Karina screamed and smashed her heel into his instep. This gave her a chance to break free and she ran forward. She ran straight up the outcrop and stopped at the tip. Below her, the ocean raged against the cliff while in front of her, a Bram so full of primal rage it caused his muscles to shake stalked toward her. Estelle really couldn't tell which of those was a more powerful force of nature.

"Are you going to kill me?" Karina said.

Bram didn't answer. Estelle doubted he even knew. Rational thought had left his mind, so it wouldn't be forced to coherently deal with the tragedy he'd witnessed.

"I love you, Bram. All I wanted was to meet death on my own terms. I can't force you to, but I recommend you follow suit." She turned, took a long look at the black sea below, and jumped.

* * *

 

Karina marched through the cave. It took Estelle almost a full minute to fully realize where she was and what had happened. The memory had played itself out and now Karina was controlling her body. After what Estelle had just seen, the idea of letting Karina control her seemed far from preferable.

 _Stop!_  she mentally shouted.  _Go away!_

If Karina heard her, she didn't pay any heed. Lucy followed at a safe distance, while Karina followed the sounds of shouts and moans toward Flynn.

Maybe this would be ok. After all, Karina had clearly shown she was willing to take drastic measures to achieve her goal. Except that Estelle could feel Karina's intentions boiling over her mind and flowing into Estelle's, and what she felt was hatred. Hatred for Flynn, the commandant who let the Adephagos reign for weeks and failed to protect his people. The man who drove her to kill her daughter. He needed to pay for his sins.

 _No_. This couldn't be happening. Estelle heard Flynn and Yuri's voices getting louder but the thought of reaching them now filled her with fear. Karina planned to kill Flynn and then take Lucy to the afterlife, but Estelle had no idea if Yuri was expected to survive. She tried to stop her feet from moving until her mind strained, but Karina had full control and moved ruthlessly forward.

And what about Lucy? Estelle had no idea what the afterlife was like, but she could tell that Karina believed she and Lucy would be together forever there. If Karina was the one who took Lucy into the afterlife, Lucy would be forced to spend eternity with the woman who'd so violently murdered her. Estelle's despair at how helpless she was to protect the people she cared about physically pained her.

Light glowed ahead and Estelle heard splashes. They were getting close. She fought hard to regain control of her body and she thought she felt herself shake her head, but then Karina regained control. Estelle took this as a positive sign, though, and kept trying to force her way to the front. She needed to get Karina out before she could hurt Flynn and Yuri.

A shadow grew on the wall in front of them, and then the caster crawled into view. Flynn slowly reached his shaking arms forward, reaching for something under the water. His sword, perhaps. Blood streaked down his face and his whole body heaved for breath. Bram strolled beside him with a cunning smirk that looked both familiar and terrifyingly foreign on Yuri's face. That was the look Yuri should be giving to en enemy, not Flynn. Bram's foot slammed into Flynn's ribs with a crunch and Flynn collapsed on his side.

When Karina approached, Bram looked up. "Oh, so the princess has decided to join us. How nice. You're just in time to see me gut this knight like a fish. Don't worry, sweetheart, I'll get to you next."

Flynn heaved himself up so he leaned against the wall. He was so thoroughly soaked it was hard to tell what was water and water was blood, but he was clearly hanging on by a thread. "No…" he groaned. "Don't… hurt… Estelle…."

Karina ignored him. "Not now, Bram."

The tone of her voice stopped him. Bram wasn't worried about Flynn getting up and took a moment to pass his eyes over her, taking in her expression and posture, and then asked, "Karina?"

"For now."

"Daddy!" Lucy shoved Karina out of the way and toward Flynn. "You hafta stop, Daddy!" She stood in front of Flynn and spread her arms. "He's Estelle's family and I don't want her to be sad!"

Bram scowled at her. "Get out of the way, Lucy. You don't understand what's going on."

"No, I don't!" her voice rose in volume and pitch. "You and Mommy have been so mean! Mommy hurt me and then you were really scary and yelly and then you tried to hurt Estelle. Estelle's the only one who's been nice to me at all! I love her and I love you but she's nicer and you need to stop!"

"This isn't the time, Lucy." Karina strode forward.

"You stay away from her!" Bram left Flynn bleeding out and rushed toward Karina. "You already harmed her once and I won't let you hurt her again."

Karina dodged the knife and stuck out her foot. Helped by the water, Bram stumbled and fell forward. The knife fell from his wet hand and disappeared under the tide.

"You're a coward," Karina spat and then kicked him in the face. Bram clutched his nose with a shout and then Karina spotted the glint of metal under the water. She grabbed the knife before Bram could reach it. "I was willing to do whatever necessary to give us a peaceful ending, but you chickened out. You betrayed us!"

"Me?!" Bram glared at over the hand clutching his nose. "You  _killed_  our daughter!"

Karina spun around and faced Lucy, cowering next to Flynn. It looked like Flynn had been talking to her, but his voice was too weak for Estelle to hear. As another surge of tide rushed forward, Karina approached Flynn and crouched. Her dress swirled in the water like smoke. "You let us down."

Flynn's face had been slammed against the wall, making blood flow from from his hairline. It clung to his bangs and glued them to his forehead, while he struggled to keep his eyes open through his exhaustion and the sticky blood dripping around his eyelids. "Estelle," his whispered. "Please…"

From this close, Estelle could see all the rips in his clothes and the blood pooling up. The tip of the knife trailed down his chest as Karina considered her options. "On my way to the sea, I looked up at the sky. Do you know what I saw?"

"Mommy," Lucy tugged her arm, "Mommy, stop, we need to help him. He's hurt real bad."

"Not now, Lucy!" Her eyes never left Flynn's face. "I saw thousands of lights fill the sky, and I realized that the calamity was ending. In that one second before I hit the rocks, I realized that it was all… pointless. I did what I had to do to save my family, but you rendered that sacrifice useless."

"Es…telle," he choked out. "C-come back…"

She was trying. Every fibre of her being focused on her arm and willed it to pull the knife away from Flynn, but Karina was too strong. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted Bram, hanging back. Apparently he was willing to let Karina finish Flynn off for him, or perhaps he was too hesitant to get near her while holding the knife.

Karina pulled the knife back and readied to finish Flynn off.  _NO_! Estelle fought to regain control and she felt resistance as Karina brought the knife forward, but it wasn't enough. A scream rattled through her mind as the knife slammed into Flynn's chest. She was still screaming when Karina pulled her hand away, stood up, and turned to Lucy. She was going to take her out of this world now, to a place where they could be together in death forever.

Lucy's eyes bulged and she stumbled backward. Her eyes darted between Karina and Flynn, who was gasping for breath and trying to quell the blood with his already-coated hands. "M-Mommy, why? He was her friend!"

Karina didn't speak, but it was then that Estelle realized the scream wasn't only in her mind. Her shriek echoed off the walls while Karina reached for Lucy. The girl panted in fear while Bram started moving again. Estelle couldn't control her body but for this moment she had recaptured her voice.

"Lucy! Stay away!" she screamed, immediately followed by, "Bram! Bram, you have to protect Lucy! Karina is going to take her away!"

Understanding snapped across his face and Bram charged. Water turned white around his flurried steps and Karina had one second to raise the knife to defend herself. Estelle snapped her mind to that arm and managed to slow it down enough for Bram to grab her wrist and wrench the knife from her hand. He embraced her as Karina kicked and punched to escape his grip.

"Not this time," Bram hissed. "I won't let you harm Lucy ever again."

"Let go!" Karina screamed. "Why must you interfere!? I thought you loved me!"

His grip tightened and he whispered, "I thought I did."

Estelle felt the energy leave her like a weight lifting from her chest. Blinding light filled the tunnel and Karina screamed again, but this time Estelle's voice wasn't forced to contain it. The light faded, and Estelle took a few long breaths. She wiggled her fingers and delighted in the control, and then felt the arms around her stiffen. She looked up to see pure horror consume Yuri's face for about one second before his grip slackened and he fainted, hitting the water with a crash.

A wheezing gasp for air kicked her into motion and she ran to Flynn's side, dropping to her knees so quickly they hurt. She didn't even stop to speak before flooding the tunnel with healing light. She spent at least five minutes carefully tending to each of Flynn's wounds and making sure they were all closed. His face was ashen and his grip on consciousness was tenuous, but by the end of the five minutes, she was satisfied that he was alive and would stay that way.

Estelle turned and leaned against the wall next to Flynn. She didn't even care that the cold water soaked her to the waist. Lucy sat on top of the water, her face unreadable as she curled into a ball. Yuri lay in the water, his face an inch above the surface. His chest moved in slow breaths, alive but utterly exhausted.

That described all of them, really. They had survived. Bram and Karina had moved on. Lucy was safe. Despite the victory, all Estelle could manage to do was grip her knees and sob.


	10. Mortals Pay a Token Fee

It took a long time to get out of the cave. Estelle cried herself out until her face was as salty as the water rising around her. By the time she could make nothing more than a few choked gasps, the water had reached her waist and she realized they needed to go. Flynn was able to stand, but only just. He probably wouldn't have been able to make it without the waist-high water supporting him, and as it was he lost his balance and fell every time the tide rushed in. He leaned on Estelle as much as he could, but she couldn't offer him much help because he was carrying Yuri. The water made it easy to drag his partially-floating body, but they both collapsed onto the beach in exhaustion when they made it out.

They wouldn't have made it up to the house if not for Lucy. Her supernatural strength supported enough of Yuri's weight that she and Estelle were able to carry him up to the house and lay him down in the master bedroom, and then Estelle returned to the beach to let Flynn lean on her as he limped up the stairs. He crumbled to the soda in the living room and immediately fell asleep, while Estelle continued upstairs to check on Yuri.

She sat on the side of the bed and watched his slumbering face with a heavy frown. There were still snatches of dried blood in the corners of his eyes and in the crevices around his mouth, and he trembled slightly from the cold. He was soaked with seawater and old blood stained his clothes. There were a few splotches that seemed much fresher, and Estelle grimaced at thinking it was Flynn's.

There still wasn't time to fully stop and digest everything that had happened. Yuri needed help, so she went to his room and fetched pyjamas from his bag. Then she brought a cloth with warm water from the bathroom and returned to Yuri's room. She took his shirt off gently, in case he was still injured. There were dozens of dried wounds across his torso, thought she couldn't tell what had caused them. His flesh looked ripped, torn by something blunt. The skin that wasn't pallid was swollen and red. Estelle held her hands over him and fed healing magic into his battered body. The wounds closed and the inflammation died, and then she used the cloth to clean away all the blood. She changed him into warm, dry pyjamas, folded a towel under his hair to help it dry, and left him to sleep. Physically, he'd be all right.

Downstairs, Flynn was fast asleep on the couch. His clothing was also soaking wet, ripped, and covered in blood, but she'd already made sure all his wounds were closed so she'd let him sleep before getting him cleaned up. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she'd skipped lunch while hiding in her room. She had no motivation to actually cook, so she silently prepared a sandwich for dinner.

The evening was cool. Estelle sat on the steps of the back porch, looking out to sea while eating her sandwich. It was difficult to relax. She could still feel the remnants of terror and pain dripping in her mind after the hurricane of activity. Too much had happened to fully understand it, so she concentrated on the facts she did know.

One, Flynn was alive. He was hurt quite badly and in a lot of pain, but he was alive and would continue to be so. There was no reason to believe he wouldn't fully recover.

Two, Yuri was also alive. Whether he would fully recover was a different story, but Estelle clung to the shock in his eyes in the second between waking up and passing out. That had been  _her_  Yuri looking back at her, which meant his true self really had returned. Just what his mental state would be upon waking and remembering was a question for later.

Three, Lucy was all right. Bram and Karina had moved on and left her safe and sound. It was now up to her if she wanted to remain here or cross to the next life on her own terms.

Four, they had been wrong about Bram. While he was currently a violent and cruel man, they had misjudged his character in life. He was innocent of the crimes they'd condemned him for, and in fact it was the shock and horror of those crimes that drove him mad in the first place.

Five, Karina had murdered Lucy in cold blood and Estelle had lived it. This was why she was so worried about how Yuri would feel when he woke up. Estelle knew that nothing she had felt herself do after Karina entered her mind was in any way her doing, but that didn't wipe away the memory of how it felt to slide a knife into Flynn's chest, or the agony on Lucy's face as she screamed and died right before her eyes.

Estelle took a deep breath and focused on her sandwich. Tomorrow, the coachman would return to take them back to Zaphias. She'd rarely looked forward to returning to the castle so much.

Floorboards squeaked and then Lucy sat on the steps next to her. She rested her chin against her knees and spent a long minute gazing out to see. After a while, she heaved a sigh. "Estelle… I'm really sorry. All this happened 'cause of me."

"You didn't know how your parents would react. It's ok."

"I really didn't think anything bad would happen to Yuri."

Estelle swallowed the last of her sandwich and wiped crumbs from her mouth. "Where exactly did you put him?"

"In the other place. I dunno how to call it. It's not  _here_ , but it's not  _there_ , either. It's like… a cozy resting place where I go when I don't wanna be in this world. But it's not, like, the afterlife or nothing."

Estelle nodded slowly. "It's the place ghosts go when they're not actively manifesting."

"I dunno what that means, but I guess so."

"How did he get so bloody?"

Lucy shrugged. "I dunno. That never happened when I go there. It's a good place to nap."

Perhaps humans weren't meant to go to that in-between place, and it tried to squeeze him out. Estelle recalled Flynn's experience in the closet, and the intense pressure he'd described. Perhaps Flynn had been partially transported to that place as well, explaining why she and Yuri hadn't been able to hear him. He hadn't even been in this realm of existence, but that place was unaccommodating for mortals and tried to expel him. Intense pressure would explain Yuri's bleeding from all orifices.

Lucy rubbed her face. "I thought I'd put him there and he'd nap until I gave him back. I didn't know he'd get hurt."

"What about the blood on the floor of his room? Didn't you see that?"

Lucy squirmed on the step. "Well… that happened when I was pulling him in. It was hard to get him in and he started bleeding. But then once we reached the place, he stopped moving so I figured it was ok."

Estelle sighed. "You learned your lesson, right? Never do that again."

Lucy nodded vigorously. "Yes! I know. I promise I'll never, ever, do it again."

"Good. So what are you going to do now?"

"Uh… I dunno. Mommy and Daddy are gone now, but… it's kinda scary to follow them. What if they're still waiting? I dunno what the other side is like."

"You could stay here. Maybe if you let them cool down for a few years, it won't be so scary to move on."

"Yeah… but then I'd have to stay here all by myself, 'cause you're going back to Zaphias. You promised you'd visit, right?"

Estelle nodded, but another thought had been sitting in the back of her brain for a little while so she said, "You could always come with me."

Her eyes popped. "Really!?"

"But you'd have to promise to do what I say and not bother anyone else. You could live in the castle where you won't be lonely until you're ready to move on."

Lucy threw herself at Estelle and squeezed her tight. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!"

Estelle smiled and wrapped her arm around her. "Just as long as you promise to never,  _ever_  kidnap anyone again."

* * *

Flynn ended up sleeping for the rest of the evening and all the way to the next morning. When he woke up, Estelle was eating toast and eggs at the dinner table. He yawned and sat up on the couch, stretching his arms and wincing as every stab wound whined in pain.

"Good morning. How do you feel?"

Flynn was used to hearing Estelle say 'good morning' like a chirping bird, so the heaviness in her words caught his attention. He couldn't blame her, though. After what she'd witnessed, anyone would have trouble bouncing back. His body seemed to creak as he rose from the couch. "All things considered, I'm all right. And yourself?"

"I'm ok, too. I checked on Yuri this morning, but he's still asleep. Do you want breakfast?"

His stomach roared in approval. "Yes, please. I think I'll take a shower first, though." Seawater had dried in his hair, making it feel grimy, and the dried blood certainly didn't help.

"I'll make some eggs while you shower."

"Thank you." Upstairs, Yuri was asleep in his room. Flynn sighed when he looked at his unconscious friend, and grabbed fresh clothes without comment. Yuri probably just needed to sleep off his injuries and the emotional shock. He'd be ok.

A shower had never felt so good. Red swirled into the drain as it washed off his body and the hot water soothed his aching muscles. He still wasn't entirely sure what had happened last night, but he knew that Bram and Karina were gone and that was good enough for him. Out of the shower, he dried himself off and got dressed. Wearing clean, non-ripped clothes made him feel lighter, and as he towelled off his hair he took a deep breath and realized that everything had, for the most part, worked out.

Dressed and straightened up, Flynn returned to his room to put his old clothes away. When he entered, Yuri was staring at him. Flynn paused in the doorway and tossed his clothes aside. "Good morning," he said slowly. "How do you feel?"

Yuri didn't speak for a long minute. His chest rose and fell slowly and his face was blank. At long last, he croaked, "…Flynn?"

Flynn nodded. "That's right." He approached the bed, but then Yuri scrambled away.

"Stay away!"

Flynn froze and held up his hands. "I'm not going to hurt you. You're safe now, Yuri. You're home."

"Get back!" Yuri thrashed blankets around like he was looking for something.

"Yuri, what do you need? What's wrong?"

"Stay away from me!" Yuri leapt out of bed, wobbling as he looked around. His crazed eyes landed on Flynn's sword, which Estelle must have set next to his trunk last night. Yuri made a run for it and Flynn charged at him. If he was going to go after him and Estelle again, Flynn needed to stop him before he armed himself.

Yuri reached the sword first, but instead of pointing it at Flynn, he turned it on himself. The blade neared the side of Yuri's neck just as Flynn tackled him.

"No!" Yuri bellowed. "He might come back! I have to stop him! He's going to hurt you!"

Yuri was still weak, but so was Flynn. He struggled to pin Yuri against the floor and kicked the sword far away. "Yuri, listen to me, he's gone. Bram is gone and he's not coming back."

"I have to stop…" Yuri panted. "He's g-gonna come back."

"No, he's not. Estelle! I need your help!"

Flynn managed to keep him pinned until Estelle burst into the room. Yuri was still panting when Flynn moved aside and Estelle pulled Yuri to his knees.

"Yuri, shhh, it's ok. Everything is fine now." She pulled him tight against her chest and he didn't have the strength to break out of her bear hug. He kept struggling until he exhausted himself and slumped against her.

"Where is he?" Yuri croaked.

"He and Karina both moved on to the afterlife," Estelle explained. "They're  _gone_ , Yuri, and they're never coming back."

Yuri's face pressed against her shoulder. Flynn could barely hear him say, "I felt it, Estelle. I felt every second."

"I know," she whispered back. "I felt it, too."

"He was in so much pain."

"But he's at peace now, and so are you."

Yuri took a series of long, shuddering breaths. "I don't think I am."

* * *

The coachman came later that afternoon to pick them up. Flynn and Estelle cleaned everything up so the house was just the way they'd found it, save for the long slashes that covered Estelle's door and the blood in Yuri's room. Estelle took the empty wooden jewellery box from Flynn's room and gathered as many bones from the fireplace as she could find. Lucy said ghosts could travel far from their remains if they wanted to, but it was uncomfortable and they often slipped back. She would bring these to the castle and bury them in the palatial cemetery. Flynn wasn't sure how he felt about bringing a ghost home, but Estelle insisted and he had to admit, leaving her behind all alone did seem cruel.

In Capua Nor, Estelle returned the keys to Mr. Yates. He nervously asked how everything had worked out, and Estelle coldly informed him that the house was safe to rent out again, but he would need to do some significant cleaning to get the bloodstains out.

They stopped in Halure again to break up the trip and spent a sombre evening explaining to Rita what had happened. Flynn and Estelle did all the talking, while Yuri sat silently at one end of the table, lifelessly picking at his food. He'd been like that for the entire trip, answering in one-word responses when spoken to and staring out the window. Estelle and Flynn filled each other in on everything that had happened while they were separated, but when they asked Yuri where he'd been for the past few days, he'd muttered something about it being dark and gone back to staring out the window.

They arrived in Zaphias in the evening, and Estelle took Yuri to her room for the night. Neither of them liked the idea of leaving him alone. The fact that he didn't utter a word of protest at staying in the castle was even more of a reason to keep him nearby. Flynn had a restless night. He struggled to keep from tossing and turning because movement hurt his wounds, and when he finally managed to fall asleep he spent his dreams running down black tunnels while his loved ones tried to kill him.

On Estelle's recommendation, he extended his vacation. After everything that had happened, he needed a day to sit at home and do absolutely nothing to get his head back in order. After taking a long, hot shower to drive away memories of nightmares, he'd stepped out and found Sodia waiting in his room.

"And that brings us to now." Flynn leaned back on the couch and sighed. "I hope you believed at least some of that."

"It is… unexpected," Sodia said. "I do believe you, sir. As unbelievable as it may be, I find it even more unbelievable that you would lie about something like this."

"Thank you." Explaining everything had helped clarify events in his head. He felt less muddled and overwhelmed by it all now that he'd put it into words, and having someone he trusted assure him she didn't think he was crazy helped a lot.

"You really ought to see a doctor, though. I'm sure you're dangerously low on blood and those wounds must still be hurting you."

"Perhaps, but what would I tell them? If the commandant shows up with a near-fatal amount of stab wounds, people are going to demand answers. They'll want to know exactly who stabbed me, and I can't expect the Council to believe my story about ghostly possession. More likely, they'll assume Yuri tried to kill me and then made up a story about being possessed to get off the hook." Flynn shook his head. "I can't let Yuri take the fall for this. He's already… I don't know. I want to believe he'll go back to normal soon, but he spent several days trapped in some otherworldly dimension, and then was possessed by an angry spirit and forced to witness himself terrorizing his friends. Anyone would be traumatized by something like that. If he's questioned on whether he stabbed me, I'm afraid he'll say he did."

Sodia nodded slowly. "Yes, I could see that. I certainly hope he recovers soon. You need to make sure you take it easy for the next few days, though."

"I assure you I will." Flynn rose stiffly. "For now, I'm going to pay a visit to Lady Estellise. If you need anything, you can probably find me in here later today."

Sodia stood and saluted. "Yes, sir. I'll try not to bother you unless there's an emergency."

The good thing about being in pain and suffering serious blood loss was that when he passed people in the halls, they could tell from his appearance he really was ill. He felt bad about extending his vacation on such short notice, but at least anyone who saw him couldn't make the argument he looked perfectly healthy. Estelle met him at the door to her room and smiled after she hugged him.

"Yuri's awake."

Flynn stepped in and closed the door. "How is he?"

Estelle's smile slipped. "Not too different. He's in my bedroom."

"Give me a minute with him, please."

She nodded and Flynn entered the room alone. Yuri sat in an armchair by the window, staring out at the gardens. Flynn approached slowly and spoke softly. "Good morning."

Yuri just grunted as Flynn sat down.

Flynn followed Yuri's gaze. A bird sat on the wall, preening itself. "It's a beautiful day."

Yuri grunted again. They sat in silence for a few minutes, until Yuri asked, "How long was I gone?"

Flynn turned his gaze on him. "About a day and a half."

Yuri slowly turned his head to Flynn. His eyes filled with surprise when he asked, "Is that all?"

"How long did you think it was?"

Yuri rubbed his fingers on the fabric of the armrest. "You know when you were in the closet for five minutes, but you said it felt like over half an hour at least?"

Flynn nodded slowly.

"Imagine that, but multiplied by over twenty four hours."

It must have been even worse for Yuri. Flynn hadn't been entirely drawn into that dimension, while Yuri had been completely trapped there. "What was it like?"

"Dark." Yuri shrugged and folded his hands on his lap. "Painful. Couldn't move. There was no sound, or light, temperature. Started seeing things eventually. Think I was hallucinating. After an eternity, I felt him crawling into my head. By then, I was too… crazy, disoriented, whatever you want to call it - to resist. He pulled me out and then… then I watched myself try to kill you."

Flynn rested his hand on Yuri's knee, but pulled it back when Yuri flinched away. "I know it wasn't you."

"Lucky you."

Flynn frowned. "Do you think it was?"

Yuri heaved a sigh and rested his chin in his palm. "I have to keep reminding myself it wasn't."

"Then I'll keep reminding you every day until it sinks in. You didn't hurt me. You didn't hurt Estelle. It  _wasn't you_."

Yuri squeezed his eyes shut. "Thanks."

"Are you going to stay in Zaphias for a little while?"

There was another long pause before answering. "Not sure. Probably should. Don't really feel up to running guild missions."

"That's a good idea. Take it easy for as long as you need to get your head together."

Yuri nodded slowly and stared out the window again. Flynn was about to leave when Yuri said, "He wasn't evil, you know."

"Who? Bram?" Sure, he had been a victim of Karina as well, but that didn't excuse trying to kill Estelle. Flynn's sympathy for him was hindered by all the stab wounds that still ached.

"I don't think ghosts come back with their personality entirely intact. He snapped that night, and it stuck."

"He burned his daughter's body in the fireplace."

"He was afraid that if he buried her, a monster would dig it up and eat her."

"I… guess that makes sense."

"He really did love her." Yuri watched the flowers outside instead of Flynn. "Estelle became a mother figure to Lucy, and after what Karina did… he thought Estelle was going to hurt her."

"That doesn't justify terrorizing us."

"No. Like I said, he just… went a little mad." Yuri smirked. "Who am I to judge? I went a little mad, too."

Flynn tightened his mouth. While he could sympathize with Bram's grief over losing his family in such a traumatic way, he certainly felt able to judge him for how he'd reacted to it. Flynn had lost loved ones, too, and he had never gone on a slashing spree against people only tangentially related. He'd brushed so close to death down in those tunnels, and no amount of sympathetic back story would make him forgive the man who'd shoved a knife into him so many times with a smile on his face. Surely once Yuri got his head back in order, he'd feel the same way.

He sat with Yuri for a little bit longer, but Yuri didn't feel like talking again. Flynn left him to rest and returned to Estelle's sitting room. She sat at the table with the tea set out, while Lucy poured imaginary tea into a cup.

"Good morning, Lucy."

Lucy frowned as she looked at him. "Uh… hi."

"Lucy," Estelle said gently, "what did I tell you about being polite?"

Lucy nodded and then said, "Mr. Flynn, do you want to have tea with us?"

"I would love to, thank you very much." Flynn sat next to Estelle and let Lucy pour him 'tea'.

"Well?" Estelle asked, glancing at the door to her room.

Flynn sighed heavily. "I suppose we should be thankful he's physically all right."

"Do you think he'll ever… you know, be himself again?"

Flynn mimed sipping his tea. "I'd like to hope so. I think we just need to give him some time to wrap his head around everything that happened. Yuri is resilient. Once he gets his bearings back and sorts out what was Bram and what was him, I think he'll bounce back. I'm just not sure how long it will take to fully sink in. What about you? Are you all right?"

"Right enough. I've had nightmares the past two nights about…" her eyes darted to Lucy, and she frowned. "I'm ok, though."

"And what about you, Lucy? Is everything ok with you?"

"Oh, yes! The castle is so pretty and Estelle says that as long as I stay invisible and don't hurt anyone, I can go anywhere I want! I'm gonna be real good, you'll see."

"I'm glad to hear that." Flynn gave her a smile, as cheerful as he could manage under the circumstances.

"Flynn… I'm really sorry your birthday turned out so awful. I really thought this would be a nice getaway."

He patted her elbow. "I sincerely appreciate the effort you went through to arrange this. It was such a thoughtful gift and the first day was everything I could have wanted. I would definitely love to go on any future vacations with you. With all that in mind, I hope you understand I hold no judgement against you when I say… that was a  _terrible_  vacation."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and happy Halloween! To give proper credit, every chapter title is a quote from a movie, except for the first and last which come from the narration at Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. They belong to, in order, Ghostbusters, Poltergeist, Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, The Haunting, The Shining, and Shaun of the Dead. Have a spooky day!


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